'No country can ever be free to make its choices and remain independent if it continues to wear borrowed plumes,' warn Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'We should build a military with the capability to fight today's war on priority -- balancing it with the requirements of the future,' says Lieutenant General Anil Chait, one of the Indian Army's most cerebral thinkers who recently retired as chief of the Integrated Defence Staff, in his agenda for the new defence minister.
Excluding the pension outgo, the allocation in the Union Budget for the armed forces stands at Rs 3.62 lakh crore.
'My understanding is that by the time President Xi Jinping came for the Chennai summit [2019], he had already instructed his army to undertake the action in Galwan in the summer of 2020.'
In the event of a war with China, AMCA deep strikes would target China's rail and road links with Tibet, isolating PLA divisions there.
He reaffirmed the government's commitment to resolving any outstanding issue in the way of growth and development of indigenous defence industries.
The unique BrahMos weapon system on numerous occasions has established its supremacy in the world of supersonic cruise missile, a statement by the BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture of India and Russia, said.
Glimpses of the colourful parade we will see on Rajpath in New Delhi on Thursday.
The Indian Army rejected DRDO's INSAS assault rifle in 2010 due to its all-round inefficiency. Now the army is being forced to accept DRDO's Excalibur rifle, which is basically an ungraded variant of the INSAS, to make up for a severe shortage of small arms.
Prominent in the DRDO's display are several artillery guns, armoured vehicles and tanks that underline a measure of success in developing these key weapons platforms for the army. Here are three systems that are headed for success.
India on Monday test-fired its nuclear-capable Agni-III ballistic missile with a strike range of more than 3,000 km as part of a user trial by the Army from Wheeler Island off Odisha coast, defence sources said.
Describing the trial as a "complete success", they said all mission objectives were met during the test-fire. All radars, tracking systems and range stations tracked and monitored the flight performance of the missile, which was launched with support of a mobile launcher.
India has shortlisted five of the 17 hi-tech items of military hardware offered by the US for co-production and co-development under a one-of-its kind American offer to boost bilateral defence cooperation.
In 2013, India had displayed the Inter Continental Ballistic Missile Agni V during the Republic Day Parade. The chief guest at that time was Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.
Singh made the remarks while addressing a "CEOs' Roundtable" at the 14th edition of Aero India at the Yelahanka Air Force station complex on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
The National Security Strategy document should flag all major issues concerning security strategy and provide guidelines to concerned departments to work out suitable action plans. Since the global and regional geopolitical canvas is dynamic, the NSS document should be deliberated at length before formulation and should be reviewed periodically, recommends Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
DRDO plans to build a tank for use in the mountains and in the jungles.
Another proposal of the army and the IAF for the procurement of 55 low level light weight radars was also cleared by the DAC for Rs 419 crore.
'A veiled secret of India's defence and strategic culture is the lack of a serious interest in them by the political class. The Indian National Defence University would fill this void,' feels Lieutenant General Anil Chait (retd).
It was the third user trial in the Agni-III series carried out to establish the repeatability of the missile's performance.
The UAE is the second country after France to send its troops to participate in the Republic-Day parade of India, a tradition started last year.
India on Tuesday test-fired an advanced version of the 290-km range BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from the Odisha coast. The missile was test-fired from a mobile launcher from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur at about 10.40 am, Defence Research and Development Organisation said.
Prithvi-2 is capable of carrying 500-1,000 kg of warheads and is powered by liquid propulsion twin engines, the sources said.
The approval to the proposals come amid increasing hostilities by Pakistan along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as well as China's aggressive posturing in several sectors along the nearly 4,000-km-long Sino-India border.
The long-pending proposals were cleared at a meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), the defence ministry's highest decision making body on procurement.
The Heron unmanned aerial vehicles are already in the Air Force, Navy, and the Army and are being used extensively at the moment by both Army surveillance and Target acquisition batteries and Air Force in the Ladakh sector.
India on Friday successfully test-fired its indigenously-developed nuclear-capable Prithvi-II and Dhanush ballistic missiles in separate trials, boosting the armed forces' operational readiness.
A salvo from a Pinaka battery brings down on the enemy more than seven tonnes of high explosive in just 44 seconds.
The 155-millimetre, 52-calibre Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System, which was successfully tested in Pokhran, demonstrated its potential to be a world-beating system.
The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is the world's fastest operational system in its class and recently the DRDO has extended the range of the missile system from the existing 298 km to around 450 km.
The utility helicopters will be used in attack missions as well as for search and rescue and surveillance operations.
The ministry of defence has bought two regiments of the indigenous Pinaka multi-barrelled rocket launcher for Rs 3,230 crore.
All equipment from the Army which were part of the Republic Day celebrations are made-in-India, Chief of Staff Delhi Area Maj Gen Bhavnish Kumar had earlier said.
India today successfully test fired indigenously-developed surface-to-air Akash missile with a strike range of 25 km and capability to carry warhead of 60 kg from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur as part of a user-trial.
The missiles were randomly chosen from the production stock and the entire launch activities were carried out by the specially formed strategic force command and monitored by the scientists of Defence Research and Development Organisation as part of training exercise, a defence scientist said.
India celebrated its 71st Republic Day on Sunday with a 90-minute display. The Armed Forces took centre-stage parading an array of weapons and the Defence Research Organisation put up a display of state-of-the-art technology. Here are some of the best moments from Rajpath.
It was decided that the senior-most Army officer in a state would get in touch with the chief minister to understand the requirement and take forward the process, including offering to treat civilians wherever possible
'Where is the analysis that we need to spend at least Rs 4 trillion to keep India safe?'
"The equivalent of BrahMos is yet to built. And, in the next 20 years, it cannot be intercepted by an enemy," says A Sivathanu Pillai, scientist, and CEO and MD of BrahMos Aerospace sharing the vision for the future trajectory of growth for the iconic missile technology developed jointly by India and Russia.
Senior Colonel Liu Degang said the Arjun tank is "very good" and suits Indian conditions.
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