The MiG-21's sharp silhouette and supersonic roar will live on in the memories of those who flew it, those who maintained it, and those who watched it streak across the sky as a symbol of India's strength, asserts IAF veteran Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd).
The slippage in the delivery schedule for the LCA Mk-1A variant of the jet had become a major issue with Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal A P Singh raising the matter publicly.
The Chinese military Thursday declined to comment on the performance of China-made weapons used by Pakistan in the recent conflict with India.
IAF Vice Chief Air Marshal Narmdeshwar Tiwari highlights Operation Sindoor as an example of how a limited number of weapons can bring an adversary to the negotiating table. He emphasized the cost-benefit of air power and the advantages of manned systems.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Friday that the Operation Sindoor undertaken by the Indian armed forces in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack has "completely exposed" the fact that terrorism in India is sponsored by Pakistan. Shah also said that the operation showed the "firm" political will of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the "precise" intelligence inputs from agencies, and the "lethal" capabilities of the armed forces. He added that the operation was successful as it used the correct firepower and achieved its aims besides "showing the reality" to Pakistan.
Defence stocks have been on a tear, with the Nifty India Defence index hitting all-time highs. Over the past week, the index jumped around 7 per cent, far outpacing the flat performance of the Nifty 50. Over the past month, its 12 per cent gain has trebled the benchmark's return.
Air India on Friday announced that several of its international flights were either diverted or sent back to their origin due to the emerging situation in Iran and the closure of its airspace.
The final contours of the theaterisation process could involve the establishment of two integrated theatre commands to counter Pakistan and China, along with a third maritime theatre command.
Records stretching back to 1947 suggest a consistent strategy by Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), of using terrorism as a state policy against India.
In an interaction with naval warriors on board aircraft carrier INS Vikrant off Goa, Singh sent a stern warning to Islamabad saying India will not hesitate to use the methods to deal with terrorism that Pakistan cannot even think of.
'Can a nuclear-armed nation sustain itself indefinitely under overt military rule without catastrophic consequences for itself and the region? History suggests otherwise.'
The Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan on Monday deliberated on various aspects of the May 10 understanding reached between the two sides on cessation of hostilities.
India's precision strikes using an array of weapon systems and missiles on eight key installations ranging from air defence systems to radar sites and command centres of the Pakistani military forced Islamabad to urge New Delhi to end the hostilities, the sources said.
The Chinese see no need to fight directly. They have an able and willing proxy in Pakistan, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has denied claims by the Indian Air Force that it shot down Pakistani aircraft during Operation Sindoor, calling the assertions 'implausible' and 'ill-timed'.
India and the US have agreed to work together to draft a comprehensive framework on defence cooperation, aimed at structuring the bilateral collaboration for the 2025-2035 period. The framework will cover multiple domains in land, air, maritime and space, and will focus on intelligence, logistics, operational and industrial engagement. The agreement comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's planned trip to Washington, where he is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump to discuss boosting India-US cooperation in the areas of trade, energy and defence.
India on Friday called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reconsider its $1 billion assistance to Pakistan, suggesting that Islamabad could use it for terror funding.
Following the preliminary investigations into the crash of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8432 in which 38 passengers were killed near Aktau in Kazakhstan, it was revealed that a Russian missile was responsible for the crash, Euronews reported on Thursday, citing sources from the Azerbaijani government.
Dar's statement, echoed by another federal minister, came as the Indian and Pakistani militaries targeted each other's installations using missiles in the last more than 12 hours, further escalating the already tense conflict situation.
Indian Navy's carrier battle group, submarines and aviation assets were immediately deployed at sea with full combat readiness in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, a top Navy official said on Sunday.
'If the Trump administration could gain access to the nuclear weapons, they would be satisfied -- at least they could control them.'
The MiG-21 episode demonstrates that procurement is always strategic.
Choices about what aircraft to acquire, who builds them, who supplies the spares, who trains the pilots and technicians are decisions with political consequences lasting for decades.
A day after Israel claimed that Hamas had violated the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, United States President Donald Trump on Monday (local time) issued a stark warning to the militant group, saying it would face 'eradication' if it violated a truce in the region.
A villager was killed and three others were injured in shelling by Pakistan in forward areas of Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch and Rajouri districts early Friday morning, prompting Army troops to retaliate. The shelling also caused significant damage to property, with many houses and hundreds of vehicles affected. The firing and shelling were directed at areas in Rajouri, Poonch, and Jammu districts, apart from Kashmir's Kupwara and Baramulla districts, overnight.
India needs to be technologically and militarily prepared to defend itself from both Pakistan and China, alerts Ramesh Menon.
While the peacetime stranding of a foreign fighter jet is rare in India, the F-35 -- a military asset of a foreign country with which India has strategic relations -- was being guarded by the Central Industrial Security Force, the agency responsible for security at Indian airports.
There are vexing questions around the disconnect between Nifty returns and portfolio returns, between economic growth and earnings growth, and finally, between earnings growth and market returns, points out Debashis Basu.
The Director General of Air Operations said "whatever methods and whatever means we have chosen, it had the desired effects on the enemy targets",
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday warned Israel and said that the "Zionist regime made a grave mistake" and "will face the consequences of its actions".
Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan says the Indian Air Force would have slowed the Chinese offensive considerably during the 1962 War.
The Directors General of Military Operations of India and Pakistan firmed up the arrangement on stopping military actions on May 10 after four days of fierce offensives between the two sides that triggered fears of a wider conflict.
The Chinese military on Monday denied reports that its largest military cargo plane has carried arms supplies to Pakistan and warned legal action against those spreading such rumours.
India has to fill in all the critical gaps in missiles, ammunition, sensors and stockpile in the fastest possible manner, focusing on the critical instruments that worked this time, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
In the India-Pakistan situations, off-ramps have come either through foreign mediation (after months of kinetic warfare over Kargil, and a long stand-off with Op Parakram) or when a situation made it possible for both sides to claim a win, explains Shekhar Gupta.
'Trump had done a deal with the current regime minus Maduro. The current regime is giving Trump entry into Venezuelan oil. They are obeying him and doing whatever he says.' 'They are happy because they have saved their heads by sacrificing only two, Maduro and his wife. Thousands of Venezuelan military leaders would have been jailed or killed in American action had Maduro stayed in power.'
Even as Pakistan and Afghanistan gear up to meet in Doha on Saturday to broker a peace after days of fighting and air strike the Taliban government said that Afghanistan reserves the right to respond to Pakistani airstrikes on its land.
The divergent views on the proposed theater commands was visible at a two-day military conclave at the Army War College, Mhow, with Air Chief Marshal AP Singh cautioning against implementing the plan in a hurry while Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh Tripathi asserted that his force is committed to it.
The western media is going all out to prove that India suffered a major setback in Operation Sindoor and how China helped shoot down Indian fighter jets. One of the articles published in British newspaper Telegraph stated Operation Sindoor shattered the myth of India's air dominance over Pakistan. "The Pakistani Air Force, aided by Chinese targeting satellites and AWACS executed a sensor-fusion kill. The Rafales never got a lock, never even saw their adversary. When the missiles hit, it was already over," wrote the British Newspaper, The Telegraph.
Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan emphasizes the importance of self-reliance in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) for India, citing recent global conflicts and Operation Sindoor as examples of their strategic importance.
'All the government and private offices are functioning.' 'Overall, life is continuing normally.' 'People of Iran are showing spirit and resilience in the face of adversity.'
