'What's on offer for India is to establish a production line here that would be the world's only production line.'
Even as three Rafale fighters line up in Bengaluru for eye-popping aerobatics displays at the Aero India 2015 exhibition this week, senior ministry of defence sources say the proposal to buy the French fighter is "effectively dead".
Ahead of President Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi, Indian and Russian officials will be holding talks on the multi-billion dollar Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft joint project.
The IAF has just 33 squadrons, 9 short of the 42 squadrons needed to tackle China and Pakistan together, says Ajai Shukla.
'IAF is expanding at a rapid pace'
Codenamed Red Flag Alaska 16-1, the exercises are being conducted in the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, the largest instrumented air, ground and electronic combat training range in the world at more than 65,000 square miles.
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to retire on December 31, also rued that the tender for the much needed "force multiplier" mid air refuellers had to be withdrawn.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.
State-run HAL will hand over the first two Tejas aircraft to the IAF on July 1 which will make up the 'Flying Daggers' 45, the name of the first squadron of the LCA which will be based in Bengaluru for the first two years before being moved to Sulur in Tamil Nadu.
The government is looking into the complaints about the procedure to determine the winner of the multi-billion dollar combat aircraft deal, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Thursday while admitting that there was no money to sign such a big deal in this fiscal.
Along with HAL, Boeing intends to involve the Mahindra Group in building Super Hornets in India.
What the new defence minister does with the Rafale fighter jet deal will decide if India wants to build genuine, long-term defence capability through an indigenous product that slashes life-cycle costs, or opt for glitzy signing ceremony with foreign vendors that would please the public, says Ajai Shukla.
NSA Doval, defence top brass brief Union ministers on the deal to help them counter Opposition charges.
'The Indian Army can easily initiate retaliation.' 'But escalation would be both inevitable and unpredictable.'
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.
How will the Modi Sarkar's likely return affect other nations?
The report authored by Ashley Tellis, the top American expert on India and South Asia, states that the IAF's fighter force is weaker than numbers suggest.
'It is hard to justify $225 million a plane for an increasingly obsolete mission.' The purchase of the 36 Rafales has changed little for the IAF.
'One of the great assets that India has is its enormous intellectual content, enormous intellectual developmental content, and some of the things we need to be working on are unmanned systems, for example, the enormous opportunities for us to jointly partner and develop -- not simply sell our equipment to India -- but actually partner and develop in areas like drones, areas like advanced aircraft and even areas around certain missile systems, where we can have a win-win.'
Lt Gen Bakshi announced 'full support' to the new chief and made it clear that he won't resign.
Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam lists the major operational takeaways from the 1971 War in his new book 'India's Wars, A Military History, 1947-1971'.
The IAF is down to 34 squadrons. This will dip to 30 squadrons by the end of this decade, as nine squadrons of MiG-21 and MiG-27s retire.
On display was India's military might and cultural diversity.
India and the United States discussed a host of issues, including the security situation in South Asia, East China Sea, anti-piracy operations and America's help in developing two new commands -- space and cyber, during a recent visit of Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne in Washington.
India must develop structured multilateralism to its defence buys
'With Pakistan's 'first use doctrine' threatening the use of nuclear weapons early in a war with India, the S-400 will shield vulnerable targets like Delhi and Mumbai, complicating Pakistan's targeting calculations.'
The National Democratic Alliance government has adopted half measures instead of moving decisively on defence.
The defence ministry needs to focus keenly on "Made in India" projects without being distracted by "Make in India" slogans, says Ajai Shukla
The 13-page joint statement issued after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's annual summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin shows the breadth and depth of relations between the two countries and the trust factor that has been constant element behind it.
Starting as a maker of hydraulic pumps, the Bengaluru-based company graduated to components for automakers like BMW and Audi, and then Airbus and Boeing
'We use the word "historic" perhaps too much, but the prime minister's visit certainly was historic in so many ways.'
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