Like most army combat uniforms, this one has been designed to serve two requirements: First, protection against harsh climatic conditions, including extreme heat and cold. Second, the need to provide soldiers' outfits with field camouflage, so as to increase his battlefield survivability.
Rather than going through the tedious, hit-or-miss process of physically designing hull forms and superstructures for warships and then determining how visible they are to radar, the company will simulate this process on supercomputers.
HAL is poised to sell the Philippines at least seven Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters and eight Dornier 228 aircraft for Rs 30 billion, reports Ajai Shukla.
Army gave three good reasons why it could not build the bridges for Ravi Shankar's event. Defence ministry overruled the army's objections, reveals Ajai Shukla.
Most of the scanty 6.35% rise in the defence budget is accounted for by manpower and running expenses.
The full grant of OROP would raise annual military pensions to Rs 75,000 crore, only slightly less than the salary bill of Rs 93,216 crore.
Senior officers recounted extreme Chinese brutality to the Indian prisoners, with some of them being pushed over cliffs and soldiers' bodies being recovered from the Galwan River.
Capable of flying at Mach 2.5 (two-and-a-half times the speed of sound), the F-15EX is the world's fastest fighter aircraft. It carries 13.5 tonnes of weapons load, more than the Rafale or the Sukhoi-30MKI.
The Indian Army has been slow to react. Indian troops have deployed in the vicinity of PLA incursions, but there are no attempts to outflank Chinese positions.
'The future is about autonomy and tanking.'
The gun is unique in its ability to fire a five-round burst, while no other contemporary The gun is unique in its ability to fire a five-round burst, while no other contemporary gun exceeds three-round bursts. This brings down a greater quantity of explosive onto the target before enemy soldiers can take cover
For the navy, which is making do with just 14 conventional submarines against a requirement of 24, the INS Khanderi delay extends a dangerous operational void.
It has been argued that India should have held back on disengagement from the Kailash Range, using that as a trump card to force Chinese concessions in areas such as Depsang, where they hold the advantage.
Given the urgency, the Indian Navy is buying 24 MH-60R Seahawks in flyaway condition, and plans to build another 99 in India through the strategic partnership route.
The army has long been deficient in artillery, the modern battlefield's most lethal killer, says Ajai Shukla.
New Delhi's regional partners in restraining a belligerent China -- primarily the US, Japan, Australia and Singapore -- would like the Indian Navy to lock down the Indian Ocean Region, while the other partners can focus on deterring the PLA (navy) in the South China Sea, explains Ajai Shukla.
'Foreign ministry sources in Delhi discount the official version of the story, in which Modi made an impromptu request to stop over at Lahore, during the course of a birthday telephone call to Nawaz Sharif. In fact, this stopover had been carefully considered in Delhi, as a way to galvanise the peace process further.'
'The F-21's capabilities far exceed all other torpedoes currently in service.'
India to go ahead with S-400 missile deal with Russia, but declines project to develop a fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
HAL is also integrating the Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile onto the Mark 1A. Each Tejas will carry two of these missiles.
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
A salvo from a Pinaka battery brings down on the enemy more than seven tonnes of high explosive in just 44 seconds.
Defence experts want defence expenditure to be at 3% of GDP, which they consider minimum to counter the two-front threat from China and Pakistan, internal insurgencies, and dominating a 7,500 km coastline and the Indian Ocean beyond. What Arun Jaitley has given India this Budget is 2.16% of GDP, observes Ajai Shukla.
American armaments dominated the defence services's show of weaponry.
Indian Army officers are convinced China is maintaining the pretence of dialogue and negotiations in order to create the opportunity to occupy more Indian territory. Senior Indian planners apprehend this might be a Chinese ploy to divert attention from Depsang, in Northern Ladakh, which might be China's actual target.
The coming together of the Quad and the Australia-UK-US grouping would be a formidable adversary, moving toward the creation of a 'thousand ship navy' that reins in the PLA navy in the Indo-Pacific.
If New Delhi finds itself out in the cold in Afghanistan, both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA have only themselves to blame. Each has been in power for a full decade from 2001, without reaching out to the Taliban, points out Ajai Shukla.
'It would be a travesty if the Malaysian air force likes the Tejas, but decides against it because it sees the IAF reluctance to back the fighter.'
The ministry's year-end review is silent on the continued occupation by Chinese troops of territory that India has always claimed and patrolled.
'We cannot understand why the government is facilitating the import of artillery when our indigenous guns are doing so well.'
Given the importance of equipment modernisation, the overall defence budget should rise at least at the same pace as salaries and pensions, so that equipment modernisation is not hit.
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
With the two armies again in a face-off at multiple points, there is apprehension of renewed clashes.
Access to Sabang Port will allow the Indian Navy to dominate Malacca Strait more effectively, reports Ajai Shukla.
RInstead of disengagement, the Indian and Chinese armies have deployed an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 soldiers each along the LAC. The PLA has deployed S-400 air defence missiles to neutralise the IAF's advantage in air power
It is baffling how the PM chose the LCH as an indigenous product to celebrate on Rashtriya Raksha Samarpan Parv, even while his Cabinet holds up manufacturing clearance for 15 LCHs on the grounds that they are not Indian enough.
With the Rafale contract in limbo, the upgrade of IAF's Mirage 2000 and Jaguar fighters has become vitally important.
Top HAL sources say the AMCA, which is being developed as the IAF's next-generation stealth fighter, is slated to be assembled at HAL Nashik.
Even as Chinese troops continue squatting on territory that we claim as our own -- this was the lowest allocation for defence in percentage terms since the 1950s, reveals Ajai Shukla.
Ordnance Factory Board officials say upgrading the 39-calibre FH-77 into the 45-calibre Dhanush has increased the gun's range from 27 to 38 kilometres, using enhanced range ammunition.
