The Indian Navy's flagship carrier, the INS Viraat will be decommissioned on March 6 after serving the nation for 30 glorious years.
'The government has belied the hope that many harboured of change, efficiency and dismantling old practices as the defence ministry continues to pursue the same well trodden and wasteful path.'
The indigenously made Agni V missile was test-fired from off the Odisha coast.
'If you behave like a nail, the adversary will behave like a hammer.'
'After a strategic pause though, Beijing will revive its policy of slowly creeping towards acquiring sovereignty over the South China Sea.'
Ajai Shukla presents an action plan for Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to fix the systemic weaknesses in defence.
Two lessons from the closure of the Barak investigation: be careful with investigations, and buy from the US or Russia through transparent protocols. Premvir Das examines
The navy wants to spend Rs 40,000 crore on INS Vishal, a choice the army and air force oppose. This is as much about turf as about funding. explains Ajai Shukla.
'Frankly, India has no role to play.' 'This is a showdown between the US and NATO on one hand and Russia on the other.' 'That said, the outcome of this titanic struggle in Central Europe will remould the world order and affect India profoundly,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
This was the fifth experimental test of the homegrown missile system.
'Any conventional conflict could trigger a nuclear war with results that neither India nor Pakistan could survive easily.' >A revealing excerpt from Shuja Nawaz's The Battle For Pakistan: The Bitter US Friendship And A Tough Neighbourhood.
'It is ironic that General Rawat, an infantry officer who the government chose because of his expertise in counter-insurgency, has made his first bold statement in the realm of warfighting and mechanised operations,' points out Colonel Ajai Shukla (retd).
China is now the most significant strategic concern in Washington, as in most of the world's capitals, especially the democracies. Today, strategic autonomy has acquired a sharper definition: To ward off the Chinese challenge to India's territorial integrity, sovereignty and regional stature, observes Shekhar Gupta.
General Naravane's UAE and Saudi Arabia visits communicate India's long awaited arrival in the domain of integrated foreign policy where the diplomatic and the military domains both complement each other much more substantially, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'We rarely choose to fight when the threat is still a nascent threat. When we do fight, we fight when the invaders reach Panipat and are preparing to knock on the gates of Delhi.'
The National Democratic Alliance government has adopted half measures instead of moving decisively on defence.
Indian Army officers, serving and retired, will tell you that the one thing that makes the Indian soldier singularly unique is his josh and jazba.
India's cumbersome arms procurement procedures and a plodding Ministry of Defence bureaucracy have long been blamed for shortfalls in combat capability. Now there is another, more worrying, reason - a growing crisis of funds, magnified by the lack of tri-service coordination.
When a Chinese warship entered Japanese waters, the Indian commander called on China to maintain discipline at sea. Dr Rajaram Panda explains the significance of the Malabar exercises between India, Japan and the US.
Taking a swipe at the prime minister, Shinde said Modi used to say that UPA ministers were serving biryani to Pakistani leaders but what is happening now.
India must also not rule out dialogue with Pakistan. However, talks with Pakistan must be structured, and further progress must be based on visible results.
Putin is looking beyond the current regime in Kyiv. Of course, if the Western military assistance to Kyiv continues in any form, Washington knows that Russia will regard it as a hostile act and there will be severe consequences, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Defence projects worth a whopping Rs 80,000 crore were on Saturday cleared by the government which decided that six submarines will be made indigenously and over 8,000 Israeli anti-tank guided missiles and 12 upgraded Dornier surveillance aircraft will be purchased.
Preliminary investigations have indicated that blasts on submarine INS Sindhurakshak were caused by "possible ignition" of armament, Defence Minister A K Antony said.
'It sounds hollow when the military -- the last bastion meant to secure India within the State of India -- is itself not found secure on the third day of the Pathankot strike, in spite of so-called definitive intelligence inputs and preparations,' says Lieutenant General Anil Chait (retd), former chief of the Integrated Defence Staff.
"But we are concerned about human rights and we make sure rights of people are not violated," he said.
India and China met and spoke a lot this year, but failed to produce any meaningful results.
'Chinese troops are not geared to fight Indian troops who are battle hardened and acclimatised and are far more hardy.'
In wake of the blasts on the INS Sindhurakshak, the Navy has ordered extensive checks on weapon-related safety systems on all its submarines, Defence Minister A K Antony told Lok Sabha.
It will not be to India's advantage to create misperceptions that it is bandwagoning with some Anglo-American project for regime change in Myanmar, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
For the world and India, one of the most enduring challenges of the times is for Pakistan's nukes to be neutralised, before they are ever used by the State, their sponsored non-State actors or any rogue elements from the many terror tanzeems dotting Pakistan's unstable landscape, says Lieutenant General Kamal Davar (retd).
They justified the strikes, saying the forces had entered into Indian territory occupied by Pakistan.
Excerpts from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the Combined Commanders Conference on board the INS Vikramaditya at sea, off the coast of Kochi.
From the dust and dirt of a warzone to the gleaming uniforms of an army parade -- these are the images that show the reality of life for British servicemen and women. The revealing series of photographs are some of the winning entries in this year's Army Photographic Competition.
Even as Barack Obama administration officials believe that the India-US relationship has now "emerged at the world stage" and is no longer a "restricted to narrow" South Asia or subcontinental set of issues, they also concede that America's security partnership with Pakistan over the years still poses challenge to India-US relationship.
'Ensuring through diplomatic means and in conjunction with strategic partners that India will not be required to fight a simultaneous two-front war with China and Pakistan.' Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd) lists what India must have in its national security strategy.
'Under the present Defence Procurement Procedure, it would have been a nightmare, and a long, long one at that, to build 108 Rafales in India. Modi realised this and took the wise decision, though it is a definitive setback for his Make in India scheme.'
'It was almost as though there was widespread relief that the defence bureaucracy, and the minister, could find someone willing to shoulder the blame for everything that had gone wrong with the services under Antony's charge -- the poor preparedness of the forces, slow acquisitions caused by indecision, cancellation of contracts and whimsical blacklisting of defence contractors over the tiniest suspicion that they may have paid speed money or kickbacks.'
'A conventional war is not in fashion today and not seen as being able to deliver the objective.' 'Perhaps surgical strikes that are deeper, this time not on Pakistan's terrorist facilities, but on Pakistan army facilities.' 'The nation has to be prepared for losses.' 'War is not something that can be pussyfooted around.' 'If we go for limited number of posts in Kashmir, these are very difficult posts to capture and very difficult operations.' 'Be prepared for 200 to 300 killed.'
The known unknowns in Prime Minister Modi's Saudi visit assume great significance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
