India won't pay more than $7 billion for 36 Rafale aircraft. The French want $11 billion.
IAF pilots would no longer have to fly deep into heavily defended airspace to strike enemy bases, they can launch a Brahmos from as far away as 295 km.
Mikheev said Russia and India are holding talks with a view to sign a contract for 48 (Mi-17V-5) helicopters.
In contrast to the bare-bones price of $115 million for each Rafale fighter, the F-35A cost $94.6 million, reports Ajai Shukla.
The Kamov-226T indigenisation has been complicated by an unusually detailed Inter-Governmental Agreement.
The Bengaluru skies dazzled with somersaults and stunts by metal birds.
United States President Barack Obama will be arriving in India for his three-day visit on January 25. He will travel to India in his presidential plane, Air Force One. The presidential plane will be will be accorded the same protocol in Indian air space that is set aside for the president of India and the prime minister. Ahead of Obama's visit, here's what you need to know about the plane.
The contracts with Israel Aerospace Industries will condemn the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft to a marginal presence in the IAF's future fleet.
Delivery of a great operational machine must not get affected to settle political scores, says Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd).
It is learnt that the Aeronautical Development Agency, which oversees the development of Tejas, has put together a flying routine that 'significantly surpasses any aerobatics display the fighter has presented earlier'.
US-based $40-billion industrial goods giant Honeywell has just launched its 16th plant, a hydrocracker unit with application in oil refining, in India. The two years of Modi government have been full of optimism and energy, Anant Maheshwari, president, Honeywell India, and Steve Gimre, managing director, UOP India, tell Sudheer Pal Singh.
An industrial house bred in old-school manufacturing values, Godrej & Boyce has displayed unusual agility to become a trusted builder of advanced weaponry, discovers Ajai Shukla.
Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39 is in the batch of 2017.
To bolster its arsenal amid recurring incidents of incursions by Chinese troops, India has sought the latest versions of unmanned aerial vehicles -- both the armed and surveillance -- from the United States.
'While fighter pilots must not be sent into combat in inferior aircraft, an obsessive quest for outright combat superiority will leave an air force short of numbers,' says Ajai Shukla.
A fighter aircraft's lethality in air-to-air combat is governed by the air-to-air missile that it carries. Since the Independence, the Indian Air Force has mounted French, Russian and British missiles on its fighters. On Sunday, an IAF Sukhoi-30MKI fighter conducted the first test launch of the indigenous Astra air-to-air missile, which the Defence R&D Organisation is developing at its missile cluster in Hyderabad.
'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.'
The Lynkan Hypersport is a limited production hypercar by W Motors.
The IAF chief stressed on the ongoing development of advanced landing ground along the Himalayas.
'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).
SAAB's Sea Gripen constitutes a new option as the INS Vikrant's light fighter
The HAL wants the IAF to buy 80 Tejas Mark I-A to keep the production line occupied from 2020 to 2023-24
The IAF has just 33 squadrons, 9 short of the 42 squadrons needed to tackle China and Pakistan together, says Ajai Shukla.
Rather than focussing on manufacturing, Indian companies need to concentrate on conceiving, designing and branding products.
On June 8, 2006, President APJ Abdul Kalam became the first Head of State to fly a fighter plane, when he flew the Sukhoi-30 MKI at the Lohegaon Air Force Base in Pune.
At least 40% of a product must be manufactured in India for it to qualify for the Indian Designed, Developed and Manufactured category.
Malaysian authorities are probing new information that the missing plane with 239 people on board dropped to an altitude of 5,000 feet or possibly lower to evade radar detection after it turned back midair.
We get tangled up in our own crooked web on purchases, and the murky arms bazaar knows it, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Despite frequent high-level interactions there has been little traction on substantive issues between India and France,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
India-Vietnam relationship has its own imperatives and dynamism. In India's look east policy Vietnam has been the major pivot, at least in terms of security and strategic imperatives, says Rup Narayan Das.
The French have been rewarded for their obstinacy with exactly what they wanted -- an order for fully built Rafales without technology transfer.
The ministry of defence has unwisely decided to build just two squadrons of the already developed aircraft -- Tejas Mark I -- and to start developing an even more capable Tejas Mark II. This is an enormous blunder, says Ajai Shukla
'The Senators were playing safe, not angering either the pro-India lobby or the pro-Pakistan lobby, but perhaps more importantly, the military-industrial complex -- the most powerful lobby of all -- which the majority of Senators are beholden to in terms of largesse to their campaign coffers.'
'Make in India' will be central to Mr Modi's visit to Europe and Canada. It is difficult to predict what will happen with the Rafale deal, but if it goes through, it will undoubtedly become the 'Mother' of all 'Make in India' projects,' says Claude Arpi.
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.
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