The contracts with Israel Aerospace Industries will condemn the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft to a marginal presence in the IAF's future fleet.
The Indian Air Force's on Friday conducted day-night demonstration of its combat and fire power in Pokhran, which was witnessed by President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Karnataka BJP core committee had proposed only Tejaswini's name for the Lok Sabha seat, but Tejaswi Surya emerged the dark horse.
As the curtains fall on another year, Rediff.com brings you all the action from the sports field that defined 2019.
The IAF has demanded five new capabilities in the Mark 1A that would give it a clear combat edge over Pakistan's entire fighter fleet, and most of China's as well.
The Sri Lanka Air Force and Egypt has also shown some interest in procuring the Tejas.
'The Indian Navy has sufficient combat power in areas of interest to India that can quickly scale up operations if the need arises.' 'This includes all the choke points leading into the Indian Ocean as also areas within.'
Defence minister claims MoD 'alive and kicking' after 'getting the weeds out'.
While its operating radius remains secret, a back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates it can easily strike targets 1,000 kilometres away and return to base.
Swedish defence major Saab has unveiled its next generation fighter aircraft, Gripen E, which the company said is being offered to the country under the 'Make in India' initiative with transfer of technology.
'Their air force is no match to ours!'
The two countries are interested in the current version of the Tejas and not the upgraded one which will be rolled out later.
>The Indian Navy wants 'day and night capable, all weather multi-role deck based combat aircraft which can be used for air defence, air-to-surface operations, buddy refuelling, reconnaissance, electronic warfare missions' from its aircraft carriers.
Boeing is likely to vie for the deal to supply 110 fighter jets to the IAF in one of the biggest such procurement in recent years globally which could be worth over USD 15 billion.
"When you tell one lie, you need to keep spinning out more lies, to cover up the first one. In her eagerness to defend the PM's Rafale lie, the RM lied to Parliament," Gandhi tweeted.
Asked whether the IAF can play a role in smashing terrorist training camps across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, he did not rule out such a possibility.
'As a nation we came up short, but that did not deter Kalam. He made it his life mission to exhort the young to greatness.'
The cancellation of the project has far-reaching implications for the IAF, for which this was once its high-tech future fighter.
Dassault Aviation chief Eric Trappier has made it clear it would take at least three years to deliver 36 Rafales to the Indian Air Force.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has asked the Indian Air Force to focus on safety and conservation of available resources as he interacted with top commanders in New Delhi just days after India decided to buy 36 Rafale jets.
Rafale deal will bring relief to IAF: Parrikar
It came under severe criticism from the CAG on Friday as it pointed out that its Mark-I version has 53 'significant shortfalls'.
The final deal may be clinched by May-end.
One of the most sought after exhibitions in Asia, as many as 549 companies are participating this year with 53 fighter aircraft on display.
Singh received the aircraft at the Rafale fighter jet handing-over ceremony at Merignac in the presence of French Minister of Armed Forces Florence Parly. Members of the top military brass of France as well as senior officials of Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, were also present at the ceremony.
The Air Chief Marshal, who is set to retire on December 31, also rued that the tender for the much needed "force multiplier" mid air refuellers had to be withdrawn. He said a fresh tender is in the offing and the procurement will be speeded up.
The parade began after President Ram Nath Kovind conferred the Ashoka Chakra -- India's highest peacetime gallantry award -- to Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Shopian in Kashmir in November.
Group Captain Murli Menon (retd) reveals how India can neutralise the Pakistan air force's combat capabilities without firing a shot.
With no payments coming in, HAL for the first time ever taken a bank loan of Rs 7.81 billion.
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'.
The new device, building by a team of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, will keep the heart in good condition for about eight hours.
Meanwhile, Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at the Modi government and Anil Ambani over the Rafale issue, saying that in order to bag India's biggest defence contracts one has to be a "defaulter of Rs 45,000 crore" and have "no relevant experience".
'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.'
Though this time India's first astronaut remained earth bound, P Rajendran/Rediff.com finds out more about his journey off the beaten track along America's East Coast.
'It is crucial today to realise where we have reached in this 15 year-period in order to fully and properly assess the profundity of what General Rawat has said,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Some Indians take the extreme view that everything was known to our ancients, but others go to the opposite extreme and consider everything Indian was superstition and rubbish.' 'Indian science was perhaps more rational than the European science of the time.'
The comments came a day after Indian Air Force Chief Arup Raha said the air force has moved a proposal for inducting women as fighter aircraft pilots.
"A mere 5-6 per cent of defence budget for R&D is inadequate to meet the aspirations of India's defence needs especially when China spends about 20 per cent of their defence budget for R&D," said the DRDO chief.
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.
Against the backdrop of delays in several of its major projects, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesdau told Defence Research and Development Organisation to speed up and complete its programmes in time as the world will not wait for it.
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