'Biden's promise of returning to 'normalcy' after Trump appears to mean that the same old politicians, who are responsible for the 'endless wars' in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, are being brought out of the woodwork after four years,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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.
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.
'The F-21's capabilities far exceed all other torpedoes currently in service.'
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.
World over, pluralism is in retreat. Luckily for us, Indian pluralism and its consequent tolerance of diversity is rooted in our basic values. As long as we remain faithful to these values and keep our institutions in good health, the Indian miracle of last 75 years is likely to last centuries, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
This is the first deal for artillery guns since the Bofors scandal in 1980s.
'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).
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.
Russia -- already India's biggest arms supplier from 2014-18, accounting for 58 per cent of India's defence imports -- eyes more, reports Ajai Shukla.
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.
How should one billion Indians, for whom deprivation has become an inescapable way of life, join us in celebrating 75 years of Independence? And where do we go from here? asks Kalyan Singhal.
'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).
'My brave JCO managed to get to the gun, sit on top of the dead man and fired away at the attacking aircraft till they melted away into the darkness.'
'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.'
India is worried about Pakistan getting the Taliban to ignite trouble in Kashmir, observes Ramesh Menon.
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.
'I propose to finish it soon, but till then you all will ensure that we strike hard at our enemy.' 'I will not accept any shortcomings or cowardice.'
'India and China are already in a warlike situation.'
United States aerospace major Boeing on Thursday said it received approval from the country's government to offer its F-15EX multi-role combat jet to the Indian Air Force.
'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 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 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).
"Throughout our history we've learned this lesson -- when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos. They keep moving. And, the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising," Biden said addressing the joint session of the Congress in his first State of the Union.
An opportunity to enter a burgeoning sector at a low valuation and favourable policies are propelling some of India's largest corporate groups to scoop up drone start-ups. "Indian corporations lost the race in aerospace and space tech. "No one wants to miss the bus this time. "These are seasoned businessmen and they realise that the market cap of tech companies with problem-solving capabilities will exponentially rise in future," says Vipul Singh, CEO of Aarav Unmanned Systems (AUS).
'Entry and qualification must not be through concession and must be reserved for only those who meet the stringent standards of the institution'.
Singh is leaving for Paris on a three-day visit, primarily to receive the first of 36 Rafale fighter jets
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.
Rawat said India was looking forward to procuring Kamov helicopters and other weapon systems and technology from Russia.
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.
Rediff.com's Vipin Vijayan, who is travelling with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Japan, reports from Tokyo.
'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.
DRDO plans to build a tank for use in the mountains and in the jungles.
'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.
'Others will think twice before attacking our space assets.'
In Bihar, where a bandh had been called, a railway station and a police vehicle were torched, an ambulance attacked and security personnel injured in stone-pelting incidents on the fourth consecutive day of the agitation, while protesters vandalised Ludhiana railway station in Punjab and blocked roads and rail tracks in West Bengal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
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.
'But India, increasingly, is not that far behind, which is a story I never expected to tell.'
'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).
