The US assessment of nuclear weapons security in Pakistan appears to have changed considerably from confidence to concern, particularly as a result of the introduction of tactical nuclear weapons, the report said.
This is the first deal for artillery guns since the Bofors scandal in 1980s.
The flight test of the Air Launched Cruise Missile, Ra'ad, which is also known as Hatf VIII, was the seventh since it was first tested in 2007.
Against the backdrop of efforts to increase indigenisation to avoid defence scams, Defence Minister A K Antony on Tuesday asked the Indian Air Force to reduce its dependence on imports and work towards achieving self reliance in military weapon systems.
'In the present era of strategic uncertainty and rapidly changing threats, no military professional now disputes the unavoidable necessity of a joint planning staff for the planning and conduct of joint operations so that integrated operations can be planned 'top down',' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Captain John M Cox, who spent 25 years flying for United States Airways and is now the chief executive officer of safety operating systems at Washington DC, talks to Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa about the MH17 Malaysian Airlines flight which was shot down in Ukraine on Thursday night killing 298 people on board.
'The Balakot mission was an act of political signaling that India is willing to raise the price that the Pakistani State has to pay in order to support terrorism.'
The new minister must commit himself to supporting long-term defence plans or else defence modernisation will continue to lag and the growing military capabilities gap with China will assume ominous proportions, warns Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'Ex-servicemen engineers and technicians are true professionals worthy of being 'Make in India' agents. They can be trusted to bring long term dividends -- it is in their character to be long term loyalists!' says Air Marshal P V Athawale (Retd).
'But India, increasingly, is not that far behind, which is a story I never expected to tell.'
The 50-page Shadows in the Cloud: An Investigation into Cyber Espionage 2.0 report, on released April 6, claimed 780 sensitive documents had been stolen from India. It said the Chinese hackers had also stolen sensitive documents from 16 other countries and all E-mails from Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama's office in Dharamsala.
Singh is leaving for Paris on a three-day visit, primarily to receive the first of 36 Rafale fighter jets
'India-US defence pacts are seen by many analysts as a subtle move to jointly contain China's growing militarism, especially in the strategic Indian Ocean Region.'
The nation has the fifth largest defence budget in the world, at $52.5 billion in 2017 ($51.1 billion in 2016), overtaking the UK whose defence budget fell from $52.5 billion in 2016 to $50.7 billion in 2017.
The army chief also appealed the cadets to keep abreast with new technology to counter the contemporary challenges.
DRDO plans to build a tank for use in the mountains and in the jungles.
India and Israel are expected to discuss the progress in their joint military projects including air defence systems and specialised radars during Defence Secretary-level talks starting on December 3 in New Delhi.
Rawat said India was looking forward to procuring Kamov helicopters and other weapon systems and technology from Russia.
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.
'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.
India has realised that one can only deal with China from a position of strength and that is not palatable to Beijing, observes Dr Rup Narayan Das.
'Others will think twice before attacking our space assets.'
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said complete disengagement requires re-deployment of troops by each side towards their regular posts on their respective sides of the Line of Actual Control(LAC) and this can be done only through mutually agreed actions.
The government has adopted a multi-pronged approach involving the Army, the Indian Air Force and the Navy as well as diplomacy and economic measures to send out a firm and clear message to China that its misadventure in eastern Ladakh was not acceptable at all.
The IAF has paid French aerospace firms Dassault and Thales about Euro 350 million for 'performance-based logistics'. This requires the vendors to ensure that 75 per cent of the Rafale fleet is combat-ready at all times, notes Ajai Shukla.
In rebranding the F-16 into the F-21, Lockheed Martin appears to have accepted what many have warned it for years: That the IAF would never buy a fighter whose very name is associated across India with the Pakistan Air Force which has operated the F-16 since the 1980s.
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.
Rediff.com's Vipin Vijayan, who is travelling with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Japan, reports from Tokyo.
The president made a special mention of the threat to the environment and asked all citizens to take care of it for future generations.
The test of the Hatf-VIII or Raad missile, which has a range of 350 kilometres, was part of a 'continuing process of validating the design parameters of the weapon system', said a statement from the military. The statement did not say where the missile was tested. Pakistan has conducted a series of missile tests in the past few months. The test of the Raad came a day after India successfully launched ballistic missile Agni-III which has a range of 3,500 km.
Four veterans of the Indian National Army, an all-women contingent of the 183-year-old Assam Rifles marching down Rajpath and an Indian Air Force aircraft flying using a mix of traditional and biofuel.
'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.'
From Typhoons soaring over the snowy mountains of the Falkland Islands to Red Arrows flying over Buckingham Palace, the images submitted in the Royal Air Force Photographic Competition captures the heroics and skills of Britain's frontline fighters. Over 1,000 photos and 25 videos were submitted by military and civilian photographers alike across 13 categories before being whittled down by a panel of judges. Here are some of the favourites.
'Even though an India-China military conflict scenario seems unlikely, its possibility gets enhanced if our capabilities are seen to be inadequate by the adversary,' warns Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
They have also urged the Obama administration to review its decision in this regard.
The pre-dawn operation, described as "non-military" and "preemptive" struck a five-star resort style camp on a hilltop forest and caught the terrorists in their sleep.
The entire gamut of China's activities is aimed at keeping India on tenterhooks, cause fatigue to its troops and keeping its security system unstable, so that it cannot play a meaningful role in international geopolitics as an effective partner of the US and Japan, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'Russia remains in a unique position since it has special strategic relations with both India and China and these relationships are independent in nature'
Unimaginative increments, persistent refusal of funds have turned the military into an underfed child scared to ask for a full meal.
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