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Tuesday, July 3, 2018

PLA Navy Ditches J-15 Carrier-Based H-MRCA, Opts For FC-31 ‘Gryfalcon’ M-MRCA

An industrial consortium led by China’s Shenyang Aircraft Corp (SAC) has been formally entrusted with the task of developing and series-producing the definitive new-generation aircraft carrier-based medium-weight multi-role combat aircraft (M-MRCA) for the People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN). Nicknamed the ‘Gryfalcon’, this MMRCA will be a navalised derivative of the FC-31 stealthy technology demonstrator (TD) that was unveilled at China's Zhuhai Airshow in November 2014.
A land-based M-MRCA variant is being developed for its launch customer--the Pakistan Air Force—which presently does not possess any twin-engined deep-strike interdictor platforms (its entire fleet of combat aircraft presently comprises single-engined aircraft) and therefore remains deeply interested in procuring about 80 such M-MRCAs.
The SAC-led industrial consortium includes its No.112 Factory, the 601 Research Institute (Shenyang Aircraft Design Institute), 603 Aircraft Design Institute (later named the First Aircraft Institute of AVIC-I) and the 606 Institute (Shenyang Aero-engine Research Institute). The FC-31 TD’s (No.31001) maiden flight took place on October 31, 2012. It has been designed to carry an eight-tonne weapons payload (including four precision-guided munitions totalling two tonnes internally, and 6 tonnes being carried on six external hardpoints). It has a combat radius of 648 nautical miles (1,200km) and a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 25 tonnes. The fuselage length is 16.8 metres, while the wingspan is 11.5 metres, and the height is 4.8 metres. The maximum attainable speed is Mach 1.8, and the powerplant comprises two 85kN thrust-rated Klimov RD-93 turbofans imported off-the-shelf from Russia’s Moscow-based Chernyshev Machine-Building Plant, a division of the United Engines Corp (UEC).
First flight of the FC-31’s definitive prototype took place on December 23, 2016, which revealed that the length of the ‘Gryfalcon’ had been increased from 16.8 metres to 17.5 metres, while the MTOW now stands at 28 tonnes. In addition, the wheel-wells were significantly smaller, allowing for a larger internal weapons bay capable of accommodating up to eight tonnes of armaments.
In addition, a twin nose gear and cropped vertical stabilizers were incorporated, as was a chin-mounted electro-optic targetting sensor (EOTS-86) under the nose. The powerplant comprised twin Klimov RD-93MA turbofans that incorporated full authority digital engine controls (FADEC) and a gearbox locdated at the bottom front-end of the engine casing. The RD-93MA has a service-life of 4,000 hours, and a total thrust rating at 94kN.
The ‘Gryfalcon’ will feature a glass cockpit containing panoramic active-matrix liquid crystal displays, hands-on-throttle-and-stick controls, and a helmet-mounted display system. The principal on-board beyond-the-horizon sensor will be the KLJ-7A multi-mode radar with an active electronically-steered antenna array that is now undergoing developmental flight-tests. The airframe will also accommodate an internally-mounted self-defence suite comprising a self-protection wideband jammer, radar warning receivers and missile-approach warning sensors in a distributed aperture configuration.
Primary armament for air combat will include two types of new-generations beyond-visual range air-to-air missiles—a medium-range variant and a long-range variant now undergoing development, plus PL-10E short-range air-to-air missiles. For maritime strike, a smaller and lighter variant of the YJ-12 warship-/land-launched supersonic anti-ship cruise missile (whose export designation is CM-302 and has a 290km-range) is now being developed, which will have a range of 180km.
The PLAN’s decision to switch to the ‘Gryfalcon’ follows its insurmountable difficulties with operationalising the carrier-based J-15H ‘Flying Shark’ heavy-MRCA, along with the difficulties that continue to be experienced by the state-owned Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) in developing new-generation durable turbofans and their thrust-vectoring nozzles. Therefore, to play safe, the PLAN decided in favour of procuring RD-93MA turbofans that are derived from the RD-33MK ‘Morskaya Osa’ (Sea Wasp) turbofan now powering the MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB M-MRCAs of both the navies of Russia and India.
The J-15, with a MTOW of 33 tonnes, is the heaviest active carrier-based MRCA in the world, while its empty weight is 17.5 tonnes. Until 2016, China was confident about its homegrown electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) technology capable of launching the J-15 from ski ramp-equipped aircraft carriers like the PLAN’s Liaoning CV-16, since it was able to produce its own insulated-gate bipolar transistor chips, a key component of the high-efficiency electrical energy conversion systems used in variable-speed drives, railway trains, electric and hybrid electric vehicles, power grids and renewable energy plants. The technology was developed by China’s first semiconductor manufacturer, Hunan-based Zhuzhou CSR Times Electric, and British subsidiary Dynex Semiconductor after the former acquired 75 per cent of Dynex’s shares in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.

147 comments:

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

China is testing an “invisibility cloak” on non-stealth military jets to help them evade radar detection, according to scientists involved in the project. The technology involves the use of a “metamaterial”, a fabricated layer comprising microscopic structures similar to integrated circuits. The metamaterial can alter the way radio waves bounce off its surface to create a ghost image or minimise echo on a radar, helping hide the aircraft in flight with greater efficiency. The metamaterial was developed by a research team at the State Key Laboratory of Millimetre Waves in Southeast University in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. It was being tested on aircraft at a major military aircraft production base in Shenyang, Liaoning province, a researcher in the laboratory confirmed. The laboratory is China’s leading institute on metamaterials research and its defence applications. A team led by Professor Cui Tiejun developed the world’s first programmable metamaterials that could change their physical properties in response to electric currents. In 2011, the team said it had developed a radio wave-absorbing device that could make a target invisible to the three most common radio bandwidths used by military radars. Two years later, the team said it had created a “ghost illusion device” that could allow a plane to leave almost no radar signature. The device could make parts of the plane appear on radar as plastic, instead of metal, or show three planes instead of one, according to the team. But Han Yiping, director of applied physics at Xidian University, formerly a military engineering institute, said metamaterials alone could not hide an aircraft from radar. Stealth aircraft relied on a range of tactics, including low-reflection aerodynamic design and cloaks of ionised particles, to fly undetected, Han said. She said metamaterials were also extremely difficult to mass produce, and the technology would have to withstand the heat and shock of battle, meaning some performance would have to be sacrificed for reliability. And at present, the technology was effective within only certain radio bandwidths, Han added. Early this year, Shenzhen-based technology company Kuang-Chi said it had started mass production of a thin, metallic membrane that it claimed was a metamaterial. “This is the first metamaterial production line in the world,” a company executive said in a documentary aired on China Central Television in March. Kuang-Chi president Liu Ruopeng, who used to work at the Nanjing laboratory, told Chinese news website Ifeng.com that China was well ahead of other countries in applying metamaterials to aircraft. “There is not a clear-cut definition of a metamaterial, so not everyone in the research community agrees with their claim,” a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences said. “The consensus is that their product still has a lot of room for improvement.”

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2142887/now-you-see-it-now-you-dont-china-tests-stealth-invisibility

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/talibans-best-fighters-being-trained-by-iran-bbzc68n3m

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-backs-taliban-with-cash-and-arms-1434065528

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/07/02/obama-administration-granted-citizenship-to-2500-iranians-during-nuclear-deal-iran-official.html

Protests Growing All Over Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVTp9abzcC4

Millard Keyes said...

The above two links posted are repeats of what was posted in 2015 by these same news sources.

Kaustav said...

Prasunda,
The development of China's industrial setup, development of critical technologies combined with acquisition of key technology companies internationally is admirable and alarming as well. No wonder, they are now competing in High Speed Trains, developing EMALS and new meta materials for stealth, aerospace.etc.
Are Indian capabilities in industrial R&D too backward or is there no base or conception to develop it at all? Some SMEs and the bigger Tata/Godrej/ L&T/ Mahindras/ Kirloskar/ Kalyani Bharat Forge seem to have the base for such developments. Unfortunately our universities and Institutional R&D bodies stagnate. The less said about DRDO etc. the better.
Why is India nowhere in the field of breakthrough technology let alone world first of fundamental research and innovation?

Arun said...

Dear Sir

When will this J 31 be fully operational

How will our Su 30 match up to it

Just_Curious said...

Prasun,

All these advances by the Chinese..fc 31,laser gun -zkzm500 etc how much salt shud be taken with it? A pinch, jar or a salt pan..much hyped j20 seems to be forgotten already.donu think the Russians will sit back n watch if Chinese really make advances

Mohan said...

Prasun sir,
What is the performance of EOTS-86 targetting sensor? Is it compatible to western countries? Is chinese able to matures this produce on it own?
2. What is the specifications of klj-7a aesa radar?
3. Can india able to counter land version of fc-31 from Pakistan in future?

Kaustav said...

Prasunda,
While our nation merrily continues on it's Refusing to Develop Trajectory, witness the breakthroughs in bio sciences / genetic engineering such as Lab Grown Meat and Lab Grown Leather.
It could spell the end of malnutrition and animal cruelty if cost effective.

1.Lab Grown Meat https://www.wired.com/story/lab-grown-meat/

2.Lab Grown Leather from Modern Meadows : https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/09/modern-meadow-lab-grown-leather/540285/

Our Oh-So-Culturally-Sensitive NDA Lotus eating maai-baap surrkaar should be delighted about. But what do we do? Nada Zilch. And as for new developments, we posthumously honour with movies 'Ek Doctor ki Maut' while vilifying them and driving them to suicide through professional jealousy and bureaucracy. Meanwhile an inane bio-pic about a jail serving, drug addict of a criminal, terrorist actor breaks box office records in our theatres...

buddha said...

FC-31 ‘Gryfalcon’ M-MRCA along with submarine provided by China with nuke delivering capacity will improve pakistani ability to strike deep into India
Is there any research going in India on such invisible coating
Sir we are eagerly waiting for your X gagan shakti part two series
If Iran is providing moral support to taliban and arms then they will draw us wrath upon them.recent bombing on sikh and hindu hinting ethnic cleansing and signaling to India something By pak sponses taliban .

Aditya Kamble said...

Hello Prasun,
1. Won't it be common sensial idea to merge all the dpsu shipyards so that they can share there expertese and ipr's in shipbuilding and we can create a large company with better resources just like what Russia did with USC.

bhoutik said...

*http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2130058/surveillance-under-sea-how-china-listening-near-guam

is that a valid report?

*what is going to happen with north korea. how do you see things playing out

https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-korea-expands-key-missile-manufacturing-plant-1530486907

Ashish Gautam said...

Baht acha Article hai sir ye vala... kafi informatic.. or subsequent details further update mei btaega... Maturity mei i expect it will take 5-7 years (land version) what u say?
matlab ye ki agr ye plane aj se 5 saal bad pakistan ko donate kia gya to hmare liye sirdard ban jaega.... Since AMCA bhaisaab is still in slumber mode so
(1) Su57 is capable enough to handle it sir (if ever we buy it)???
(2) ye kha hai aapne "In addition, the wheel-wells were significantly smaller, allowing for a larger internal weapons bay capable of accommodating up to eight tonnes of armaments." so u mean ki 8000KG weapon load now it can carry on all internal bays??? is hisab se to ye abi tak ka max internal weapon capacity ka jahaz ban jaega na.... plz clarify.
(3) What's your opinion about QUANTUM RADARS?? kaisa hai ye?? iska future... details plz.
Thanks.
4) Chin mounted EO/IRST pod vala system Su30 or rafael mei nai dia ja skta??

Sanjeev said...

https://twitter.com/rickjoe_plart/status/1014006878999724032?s=21
This is some incredible pace in churning out these mammoth ships. At this rate China will put US naval superiority in pacific at risk within a couple of years. Your thoughts? What should be India’s response?

Pratap said...

Sir, German envoy in Pakistan visits occupied Baltistan https://twitter.com/KoblerinPAK/status/100531596278497689 we claim Baltistan as our territory but this moron called it part of Pakistan in the hashtag. Shouldn't India seek clarification from Germany for this provocation? China reacted very strongly when US ambassador visited Arunachal in 2016.

Chanakya Chatterjee said...

Prasun,

China seems to be mastering Putin's art of mixing propaganda and truth so well that its becoming impossible to understand when truth ends and propaganda begins.

It is also a fact that both Russia and China are the only 2 major nations that mercilessly stifle and quash any form of investigative journalism that will help separate fact from fiction within their nations.

China also has picked up and perfected the art of using "Sham, Daam, Dand, Bhed" ... in their case represented as Ideology, Bribe, Abuction/ Killings and Blackmail to get mouthpeices in democracies to downplay their own nations agenda and shore up the Chinese propaganda.

In such a world isnt it key to go back to the old school of HUMINT to corroborate what Electronic Intelligence like minded nations like US, India, EU, UK, Japan, some of ASEAN and ME and Australia gather from inside Russia and China?

How can CIA, RAW, MOSSAD etc all work together to separate fact from fiction and help govts form a strong counter to whatever truly needs to be countered, rather than be confused by the propaganda machine?

How do you suggest we do this?

Chanakya Chatterjee said...

Prasun

if the US does take this route, India could and should partner with it for Vishal and follow on vessels

https://www.navygeneralboard.com/the-return-of-modern-light-aircraft-carriers/

what are your thoughtS?

What will be India's equivalent of the PLAN type 55?

Many thanks

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To PIERRE ZORIN: Not exactly repeats, but updates on what had appeared earlier.

To KAUSTAV: As I had stated numerous times before, it is futile blaming the Indian industrial OEMs or DRDOs or other academic institutions unless & until the executive branch of the Govt of India lays out a detailed roadmap for military-technical R & D & military-industrial productivity. And to articulate such roadmaps one requires grand strategic visioning on the part of those who make up the executive branch of the Govt of India. Regretably, all those who have since August 1947 been part of such executive branches have only succeeded in displaying tactical brilliance & disastrous strategic blunders. And this continues till todaym, with political parties of all hues wearing ideological blinkers, despite Kautilya’s Arthashastra clearly stating that such blinkers lead to only self-destruction. Consequently, everyone today equates Raaj Dharma with ideology, thereby embarking upon a suicidal course.

To ARUN: The FC-31 is due to enter operational service in 2025. Super Su-30MKI will be more than a match for it in terms of defensive counter-air operations. In terms of acquiring similar capabilities, the only option now for the IAF & the IN is to go for more Rafales.

To JUST_CURIOUS: As my 1st comments above states, even China is in the very initial stages of discovering what metamaterials are. But at the same time, China has the money required to fund to the hilt both domestic R & D, as well as industrial espionage on a global scale. Russia is fast losing the race due to 1) declining population. 2) large-scale migration of those endowed with intellect to countries in the West.

To MOHAN: 1) The EOTS-86 IRST sensor is similar in performance to the Russian OEPS-27 IRST sensor of the late 1980s. China obtained the industrial know-how for such sensors & for SURA-1-type HMDS from Ukraine in the 1990s. 2) That AESA-MMR is still undergoing pre-certification floight-testing & it’s final performance parameters therefore will not be known before 2020. 3) Of course. But do take note of the 4th photo from the top, which shows the FC-31’s export version, which does not come with IRST sensor & that’s because Russia made China sign an IPR protection agreement in 2010 under which no piece of hardware cloned from USSR-era hardware can ever be exported by China. Hence, the PAF’s FC-31s won’t have on-board IRST sensor.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ADITYA KAMBLE: That is what was proposed way back in the early 1990s itself, but the political class shot all such proposals down since each DPSU shipyard with large unions controls the fate of several electoral constituencies. Like I’ve explained above, wearing ideological blinkers causes one to commit strategic blunders with severe long-term consequences.

To BHOUTIK: Not entirely. The surveillance was/is not conducted 24/7. Instead, China has developed autonomous underwater vehicles shaped like HWTs that lurk in waters close to where naval exercises are conducted & these vehicles are equipped with acoustic sensors that record all acoustic activity. That’s why the PLA Navy’s Type 815A ELINT/SIGINT vessel, Tianquanxing 855, was deploying such vehicles during the MALABAR-2018 naval exercises off Guam.

As for North Korea, it will take another 5 years for the Korean Peninsula can be de-nuclearised. But that doesn’t mean that the DPRK will stop producing conventionally armed ballistic missiles.

To ASHISH GAUTAM: 1) Forget the Su-57, even the Rafale is more than enough to counter the FC-31. 2) Yes indeed. But rarely will any such M-MRCA be reqd to carry all its armaments internally. 3) It is still very early days on such systems. 4) Both Su-30MKI & rafale already have IRST sensors mounted in front of their cockpits. Only the F/A-18E/F’s latest variant has a faceted chin-mounted IRST installation.

To SANJEEV: LoLz! Churning out warships from shipyards does not translate into such warships doing operational patrols at any given time. Firstly, new warship inductions must be weighed in against decommissionings of existing PLAN warships. Secondly, unlike the navies of the US, Japan or India, the PLAN has only 20% of its manpower as voluntary servicemen/servicewomen. The remaining 80% are all conscripts on short-service commission. And that’s why thirdly, the majority of the PLAN’s fleets are docked at their respective homeports at any given time. Consequently, the operational deployment quantum & tempo of the PLAN is far less than those of the IN, USN, or JMSDF. So, one must not get carried away by mere bean-counting when trying to size up the PLAN with its other regional & global counterparts. India’s response: the IN needs to induct at least six new warships of different types every year. Presently, the figure varies between 1 & 3—a very dismal state.

To BUDDHA: Pakistan’s economic state is like that of the Titanic about to collide with a giant floating iceberg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pAAiD-4J04

Jasgill said...

Sirji thnx for another knowledgeable thread. You said that IPR protection agreement in 2010 under which no piece of hardware cloned from USSR-era hardware can ever be exported by China. What if Russia allow to China export any hardware to pakstan

RAT said...

Hi Prasun,
As you had said earlier the Chinese have finally understood the reason why Russians moved away fom Su-27s to Mig-29Ks for carrier based fighters. The amazing part is Chinese were so ambitious to prove they could use a heavy fighter j-15(copied Su-27) where even the Russians machine being superior to them was abandoned. Again thanks for the updates.

Anonymous said...

https://m.economictimes.com/industry/transportation/airlines-/-aviation/working-to-make-air-india-profitable-again-piyush-goyal/amp_articleshow/64858391.cms

What do you think can they do it

Ron

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To SHUBHOMOY CHATTERJEE: In my assessment, the first two PLA aircraft carriers will be limited in their deployments to the East & South China Seas. Even if China launches its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in 2025, this vessel will not be able to become ocean-going before 2030. Therefore, for the IN the IOR will remain unchallenged by the PLAN’s aircraft carriers till 2030. Can the IN acquire the home-grown nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (IAC-2) by 2030. Most definitely not. In fact, the IN’s projections refer to 2045 when the IAC-2 should be available. But that isn’t the IN’s greatest problem. The foremost challenge is to acquire the means to combat a hostile nuclear-powered PLAN aircraft carrier in the IOR. And this challenge can be met only through a fleet of SSNs. But here again the bureaucrats & technocrats within the MoD—led by the DRDO—had in the early 1990s overruled the IN’s reqmt for SSNs, and had instead convinced successive muddled-up Govts of India of the need for giving priority to the procurement of SSBNs. As a result, today the IN has two SSBNs to take care of, but these SSBNs are still awaiting their SLBMs from the DRDO, which in turn makes the SSBNs into mere white elephants. And the fact that all the costs of the the SSBN construction & all nuclear powerpack-related developmental costs & the costs of developing SLBMs originate from the DRDO’s budget & not from the annual defence budget proves my point about the IN not being allowed to sit in the driver’s seat. Had the IN been allowed to command & control the ATV Project Office, then by now the IN would have had its own fledgling fleet of SSNs & consequently no PLAN SSN on patrol in the IOR would have gone unchallenged. And the laws of physics dictate that unless a PWR-based powerplant is first infigenously developed for the SSN, no other PWR-based powerplant for an aircraft carrier can be developed in-country. So, thanks to the woolly-headedness of India’s ‘netas’ and the opver-reliance on the intellects of the DRDO’s & DAE’s technocrats, India today has neiother SSNs nor the capability to build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers!

To JASSS GILL: VMT. There are no exceptions to the rule created by Russia on this issue. In fact, ask any Russian diplomat & he/she will say that Russia can NEVER FORGET or FORGIVE what Pakistan did to hurt the USSR in the 1980s in Afghanistan. So, it is very much possible that in future, at the most crucial juncture, Russia will impose a ban on the supply of spares for the Klimov RD-93 turbofans that power the JF-17 Thunder L-MRCAs.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To RAT: VMT. And BTW, a 10-member PLA military delegation arrived at Sukna, North Bengal, on July 3, 2018 evening. It discussed and finalised with the senior officials of the Indian Army there on July 4 the modalities of mutual troop redeployments and withdrawals from the Doklam area, before visiting Fort William, HQ of the Eastern Command of the Indian Army on July 5. The PLA delegation, led by Lt Gen Liu Xiaowu, Deputy Commander of the PLA’s Western Theatre Command, was hosted by the Indian Army’s Sukna-headquarted XXXIII ‘Trishakti’ Corps near Siliguri. The Indian Arny’s delegation was led by Lt Gen Pradeep M Bali, General Officer Commanding of the XXXIII Corps. Before arriving at Sukna, the PLA delegation visited Delhi and Agra. The PLA delegation, which will be in India till July 6, met India’s Vice Chief of the Army Staff Lt Gen Devraj Anbu onj July 2. In a related matter, Prime Minister of Bhutan, Dasho Tshering Tobgay, is paying an official visit to India from July 5 till 7 at the invitation of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

To RON: LoLz! On one hand this dickhead of a minister is saying that Air India's problems can be attributed to the acquisition of an expensive fleet that have led to running up huge debts. On the other hand, this dickhead is saying that "We are taking steps to strengthen Air India's management practices and operational efficiencies so as to make it profitable again". That’s like saying that he will use a broomstick to mop up a water puddle! What he should have said was that AI will first have to sell its existing aircraft fleet to the second-hand aircraft market & after that lease all such aircraft back for running the carrier’s flight operations. This dickhead is therefore prescribing a medication for diabetes to a cancer patient!!!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/297-china-pakistan-economic-corridor-opportunities-and-risks_0.pdf

rad said...

h i prasun

why this sudden calming down on the doklam issue ?/ because they know we can give it back??
did the chinese drop the j-15 due to pressure from russia as well?

how do you think the fc-31 will fare in the aircraft carrier role as it was never designed for that

how will chine give pak the fc-31 when it has not been able to induct it into its fleet ?

will it give the aesa radar as well,?

on the outside the fc-31 looks great with all the necessary moolah like the irst etops , aesa radar , modern cockpit, new missiles etc .how effective are they?

do chinese test pilots cut corners to present a partially tested craft?

when the world ove r testinf a craf t takes 5 to 10 years they seem to be doing it in a jiffy?

if russia bans spare parts to pak , china will of course copy the parts and give it to them. I would not be surprised if they did not do it now?

is there an indian program to make irst?




Mohan said...

Prasun sir,
As s-2 submarine is not used for its specific role, can IN use it as hunter killer anti submarine role? Because it doesn't carry SLBM and with adding various sensors,sonar and torpedo can it be used against PLAN SSN?

Regards

capricorn said...

1> can you please elaborate on capabilites and status of XR-SAM?
2> eagerly waiting for your post part 2 of IAF GAGANSHAKTI..

Anonymous said...

To the point sir very good explanation

1)The foremost challenge is to acquire the means to combat a hostile nuclear-powered PLAN aircraft carrier in the IOR. And this challenge can be met only through a fleet of SSNs.
Why so sir? Why can’t SSBN Arihant along conventional diesel subs take the role? Please elaborate

2)can you explain internal organisational structure of R&AW? Which divisions collect human intelligence? Does this organisation has its own operatives to conduct kinetic operations in India and overseas land ( like special operations divisions in CIA ) or does it outsource to MOSSAD or professional hitmen?

3) any updates on Hajipir pass now that both home and NSA are visiting Kashmir?

Ron




Unknown said...

Hi Prasun sir,

How true is it that India has started work on SSN and is about to start work on lph most probably built by l&t.

Regards
Srinivasa Nanduri

Ashish Gautam said...

Thanks for info.
Sir,
(1) AMCA mei kuch on ground kam start hua except modelling ya fir abi b 3D CAD mei he ud rha hai????

Pierre Zorin said...

UK-France amphibious operations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZDXHiybzN4

gundu said...

while ISRO is spending resources on Human Space Flight while it has many short comings in other areas? Any credible and substancial official reasoning?

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To PRATAP: That comment was withdrawn within hours of it being made. Guess Berlin strongly disagreed with such comments.

To RAD: That’s because the PLA knows only too well that neither its army nor air force are capable of taking on their combat-tested Indian counterparts. The shoddy war preparedness of the PLA has since been officvially acknowledged as well:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2153579/chinas-army-infiltrated-peace-disease-after-years

Furthermore, the PLA knows only too well that in the past over a 200-year period, under both the Dogras & later the Brits, Indian soldiers had gone & captured territory as far out as Lhasa & therefore Indian soldiers are fully capable of sustaining high-altitude warfare over pro0lonhed periods. The Imperial China ASrmy & later the PLA has never had such experiences. Consequently, the PLA is psychologically at a great disadvantage when it comes to warfighting in TAR against India. Most importantly, the IA has been operating T-72Ms & BMP-2s since 1986 in Ladakh & Sikkim under OP KARTOOS, whereas the PLA did not even bother patrolling along the Depsang Plains in Ladakh till 1997. And even to date, no PLA tanks or ICVs are anywhere near to Ladakh & they are deployed only opposite Sikkim’s Finger Area on flat plateau-like terreain. As for the FC-31, the entire airframe & landing gear have been redesigned as I’ve explained above & hence such an M-MRCA is now being optimized for carrier-based flight operations. It thus is NO LONGER an M-MRCA that was designed for the air force but modified for naval operations. If China does anything like back-engineering any Russia-origin piece of hardware, then Russia will stop all product-support for all the hardware it has supplied so far to China.

To MOHAN: No, that’s not possible since the SSN needs to be lighter & faster. Hence, no SSBN in the world can operate as SSNs.

To RON: 1) That’s not possible since the SSN needs to be lighter & faster. Hence, no SSBN in the world can operate as SSNs. 2) I wouldn’t know, since I have had nothing to do with such agencies. 3) Those visits have nothing to do with across-the-LoC military operations.

To SRINIVASA NANDURI RAMANUJAM: 1) Not, India but Russia has for India. The LPH competition is still underway & no winner has been announced or selected as yet. Meanwhile, more bad news for China:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/malaysia-suspends-multi-billion-dollar-china-backed-deals-133715990.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-cant-alone-technology-now-015400599.html

To ASHISH GAUTAM: LoLz! How to go about doing 3-D modeling when one still does not know what has to go inside the airframe? Look at how Japan is going about it, bu first developing the ATD-X Shin Shin technology demonstrator, prior to the development of the 5th-gen F-3 MRCA. Even China is in the initial stages of figuring out what metamaterials are all about, meaning the J-20 does not use such materials & is therefore not a truly stealthy platform, despite all Chinese claims to the contrary.

To GUNDU: Because ISRO wants to eventually launch manned spaceflights.

gourav said...

Hi Prasun,This is becoming a regular news.Is this a new tech from China?

https://m.timesofindia.com/world/us/us-private-citizen-cites-mystery-illness-symptoms-after-china-visit/articleshow/64877147.cms

Kaustav said...

Prasunda,
I know for a fact, that all indian submariners, right from the days of the Foxtrot class, had wanted SSNs right from day one. The ambition of every Indian submariner, a small but committed clan, many of whom actually worked on the Arihant wanted a N-Sub on the prowl in our seas 24×7. They have sweated blood and wept tears over some of the disappointments that the Arihant faced over the years. But the smile on their faces, especially the oldies, was so heartbreakingly proud the day, Arihant was finally launched was worth everything. Believe me, no Indian submariner worth his salt wants an SSBN primarily. They worked, dreamt, for a few SSNs to maintain a permanent presence in the seas. I thank you again for highlighting this fact. An SSBN is alright but a garage queen with no teeth is not. Arihant, it's sister ships, though will end up as sub optimal SSGNs later. What these old sailors wanted is probably a decade away, at least. They actually laughed at the novelty of the revolving missile launch mechanism and the younger generation used to seethe in anger when plans were changed or things went wrong, with the Russians instructing that entire deck of painstakingly laid cables, etc. had to be ripped out or relaid. It is sad very sad especially for these committed guys who have lost atleast 2 decades and not yet seen their dream of an Indian SSN squadron, ensuring that atleast 1 or ideally 3 on revolving patrol perpetually prowling our seas, come true.

Ashish Gautam said...

Khilone banane k to kam ayegi sir 3D modelling....
Inside all is gonna b imported maal that too will be installed when it will be obsolete...
So I hope to enter toys market with AMCA debut... :p :p

Jayant S. said...

https://www.firstpost.com/india/air-india-succumbs-to-chinas-strong-arm-tactics-on-taiwan-quad-member-india-has-weakened-own-position-4674441.html

Shouldnt Indian govt ask Air China & other Chinese airlines to recognise on maps & rename regions of India like Arunachal Pradesh, POK as Jammu & Kashmir reciprocally or trap them in ? Why kowtow to Chinese when they haven't taken a single step to commit to a One India policy? Why bow to their demands when we can trap them in the same map diplomacy?

Mohan said...

Prasun sir,
https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/thewire.in/diplomacy/wuhan-summit-modi-xi-india-china/amp/
What is your opinion on this article?

Regards

Ankit Kumar said...

What is it with news of IAF and South Korean Basic trainers ? What is the status of HAL HTT40? When will it be ready for production? And if there is a necessary and immediate need of few trainers, why not stick to PC7MK2? Why get 3 different aircrafts for basic training?

Also can you confirm that has IAF totally dropped the need for Intermediate Jet Trainers? And all the training will be done by Basic Trainer (PC7MK2/HTT40) and Advanced Trainer (BAE HAWK MK132) only?

Arun said...

Dear Sir

If you could go back in time and choose the Assembly line of either MiG 29 Or Mirage 2000 for IAF ; to be shifted in India

Which will you choose and why

rad said...

hi prasun
the crew capsule is mated in a n upside position as shown in pics. how will the astronauts be seated while blasting off. BY common thinking they should be seated upside down as the seat will b e in the wide part of the capsule

that is not possible as blood will rush to the brain to the extent of 3+ g while accelerating , so how are they seated?

again what is this tamasha of an empowered committee going abroad to select assault rifles ??

will france part with reactor tech for the nuke subs ? as russia? after all the french are known for giving good tech at a very high price!

or is it better to go the russian way as they are already involved in the nuke sub program?

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

What was OP KOH PAIMA:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1417105/the-making-of-the-kargil-disaster

Pakistan Navy on July 5, 2018 signed a contract for acquisition of 4 MILGEM guided-missile corvettes with M/s ASFAT AS of Turkey.

https://twitter.com/PakistanNavyNHQ/status/1014840489898635264

Anonymous said...

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/why-india-is-paying-millions-for-worlds-emptiest-airport/emptiest-airport/slideshow/64881150.cms

If there is no economic viability of this airport why India is trying to pour millions into this airport? Can we use this to operate Indian military aircraft’s

Ron

DAshu said...

Is not it the signing of contact effectively ruled out the perceived bad state of economy of that country, where everyone is suggesting they cannot survive even 2 months?
Who is paying for this pakistan or China and how come china allowed this contract?

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,

Nice timing of the religion of piece press to bring in rhetoric against army and its supporters paving the way for mullahs rule. One thing is certain and eternal as mentioned - their hatred towards Hindus and their lust for free lunches
Thanks,Ganesh

Kapil said...

Prasun da, is it about the 5th Gen Indo-Russaian nuclear attack submarine project? idrw.org/russia-offers-joint-venture-for-submarines-constructions-with-india/

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ANKIT KUMAR: What’s withit? Nothing at all. The IAF itself had confirmed 2 years ago that it won’t be going for the HJT-36 IJT or any other IJT. Instead, like the rest of the world, the IAF will have only BTTs & AJTs as flying training aircraft.

To ARUN: I would go for neither. Instead, in the previous decade itself I would have liked to see them both being decommissioned & in their place the Rafales should have been acquired for both the IAF & IN. In addition, I would have also liked to see the IA Aviation Corps obtaining 60 Mi-35M attack helicopters a decade ago, instead of 22 AH-64E Apaches, while authorising the IAF to use its Mi-25/Mi-35Ps as only CSAR helicopters & authorising only the IA to acquire up to 150 LCHs. In addition, all MiG-23BNs & MiG-27Ms ought to have been re-engined with AL-31F turbofans.

To RAD: These are only initial tests to validate the robustness of the re-entry heat-shield technologies. The final deployment configuration will emerge much later. Empowered Committee going abroad is a sheer waste of taxpayers’ money. The IA should go with the offer from IMI/Punj Lloyd as a sole-source contract. All existing expertise within India for PWR is from Russia & it is financially impossible to switch to another source. As it is the DAE is having trouble with having enough trained human resources reqd for maintaining the two existing Russia-supplied VVER-1000 PWRs at Kudankulam, as revelaed by recent CAG reports.

And here's another hilarious story:

https://wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/companies/hal-s-sukhoi-su-30-aircraft-crash-to-cost-insurer-rs-2-5-billion-118070500044_1.html

To DASHU & ANUP: The MILGEM deal was clinched by Turkey ONLY after Turkey agreed to provide the associated financial package for project financing. As for Pakistan’s survival, the popular joke doing the rounds nowadays in Pakistan is that if Alama Iqbal were to be alive today, then he would have forecasted that he foresaw the emergence of only new countries to the west of India, with these being the Bahria (Naval) Town (spread over 32,000 acres) stretching from Karachi to Jaamshoro, & the other being the Defence Housing Authority (DHA)! In other words, Pakistan exists today only for those wearing military uniforms, & all the rest of the public are damned & are free to migrate to every other corner of this world if they wish to survive!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To GOUROV: These ‘mystery' illnesses seem to crop up only in Pakistan & China.

To ASHISH GAUTAM: That’s right. Because serious players do this:

Germany & France Team-up For Co-developing 5th-gen MRCA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3UtJ6u0QL0

While Sweden & the UK Team-up:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5923349/Britain-build-new-fighter-jet-Swedes.html

And Japan’s Mitsubishi Teams up with Northrop-Grumman:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-northrop-grumman-angles-role-074848434.html

So, if the ADA claims that it has the kind of world-class Class-A geniuses who can develop the AMCA on their own, then ADA is most welcome to portray itself as the world’s laughing stock.

Meanwhile, what I had written about China’s failed J-15 ‘Flying Shark’ H-MRCA way back in 2014 ^ recently about the naval FC-31 Gryfalcon naval M-MRCA is now being picked up by others:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2153803/china-working-new-fighter-jet-aircraft-carriers-replace

So I guess once I forced the cat out of the bag, it became impossible to keep the truth suppressed until eternity. And this was corroborated a few hours ago by no less a person that former NSA P Shivshankar Menon at a seminar organised by the Delhi-based Institute for Chinese Studies, where he said in response to a question that the PLAN is nowhere near to matching the US Navy in the foreseeable future.

To JAYANT S & MOHAN: Whenever Taiwan has sent its sports contingents to India, it has always done so under the banner of ‘Chinese Taipei’. So, what India has done is to standardize the term ‘Chinese Taipei’, & this does not mean succumbing to anyone’s pressure. And since 2010 India has stopped using the term ‘One China Policy’ on any China-India joint statement—a fact that folks most often forget to take into account.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To BUDDHA: Stranger at the Pentagon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtiTf9bKHuM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O0O-37PZ_M

Rendlesham Forest Incident:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31D2JhwqylY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q2kYGro4DI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTL7upsYkCo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pSJUWUGxoY

RAF Bentwaters was then hosting close to 100,000 kT of nuclear WMDs. All of them were disabled & rendered permanently unusable in one night as a result of this incident.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To KAPIL: LoLz! This particular news-reporter has a fetish for delivering FAKE NEWS! The JV is for the strategic partnership model proposed for both Project 75I & Project 76 SSK construction. It has NOTHING to do with nuclear-powered submarines. In other words, the Ruskies are desperate to make money from the dead Amur 1650 SSK project, which even the Russian Navy has refused to embrace. The ATV Project Office on the other hand deals with only nuclear-powered SSBNs & SSNs & neither of them will carry BrahMos-1 missiles. And neither was any JV mechanism created for building SSBNs & SSNs of Russian design.

Jasgill said...

Sir, what's the status of project 15 destroy MLU and its capabilities after upgrade? VMT in advance

Ankit Singh said...

Prasun Da,
HAL will only be having LCA Mk1 and LCA Mk1A for its surviving for its aircraft manufacturing.
Shouldn't they be going with manufacturing regional transport aircraft for a wider portfolio?
May be not start from scratch but do something similar to Dornier Do-228.
It can cater both civil and military applications.

Aditya Kamble said...

Hello Prasun,
You said in this thread that PAF would buy FC31 M-MRCA. But considering the failing state of Pakistan's economy with no prospects of any improvement in the future, it would really be possible for Pakistan to buy this aircraft na dwhat would be the possible reaction of washington if Pakistan at all decides to buy this aircraft.

Ankit Kumar said...

HAL is struggling with IJT. What makes you think they will pull off something like this before world starts retiring 5th gen fighters ?

They should focus on getting Tejas project right. No FOC as of yet. They fire a Derby every 6 months and claim a big hurdle has been passed. Whats the gun doing, where is the inflight refueling system? What about the trainers?

Let defence be the survival of fittest and others should fade away for the good of Armed Forces and India.

Mohan said...

Prasun sir,
The video didn't name any nuclear WMD disable in the rendlesham forest incident but beings has been seen.
How did you know about 100,000kT nuclear weapons disabled?

The Engdoc Society said...

Dada
Good information seems Chinese have still long way to go to match the might of US.

Dada do tell us about Brhamos missile.

1. The CEO of Brahmos leave no opportunity to state this is a world class weapon and no country other than India have such weaponry in its armoury.

Is it really really effective and future proof.

2. What would be the IAs target for Brahmos

3. I remember you informing us the seekers boosters and other components come from Russia and anya chances se will be having more indigenous and future missiles in future due to aborbing of technology from Brahmos Project
4. What would be the total no of Brahmos Missiles Indian Armed forces will be having in its armoury. What are the current production Nos. You interpolated in one of the post that current no of Brahmos Missiles was some where 600+

5. Dada one last clarification having brahmos Missiles and other such missiles in armoury should lower the no of aircraft needed for all out war. When does this 45+ squardons strength was approved by the government and according to your expert analysis what maximum no of squardons we do really need for two front war scenario


I believe since we don't have a one single chief for armed forces tjat is required for developing synergies and rationalisation, IAF works in isolation in projecting the requirements wasting huge amount of tax payers money.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To JASSS GILL: The mid-life refit of the three Project 15 DDGs has yet to begin. It will begin only next year.

To ANKIT SINGH: HAL will have its hands full with the Tejas Mk.1A (if the IAF places its order) & with the Super Su-30MKI project, along with the series-production of Dhruv ALH family-members, the LCH & LUH. Then there’s the LCA-AF Mk.2.

To ADITYA KAMBLE: Since its inception, Pakistan has never bought any piece of military hardware with its ownb money. All the funds came as military aid from the US till 1990 & again from 2002 till 2014. Now Pakistan is trying to achieve something similar with China.

To MOHAN: Listen to the last 5 minutes of this videoclip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ12qbQ3AJU&t=633s

To THE ENGDOC SOCIETY: 1) Russia too has such weapons (the Yakhont) & the US does too. 2) About 2,000 rounds of BrahMos-1. 3) That will happen with the BrahMos-NG version. 4) About 4,000 rounds. 5) Not just BrahMos-1, but also missiles like Nirbhay. Neither 45 nor 50 Sqns have been approved for the IAF. The Defence Planning Committee of the 1960s that called for the IAF to have 50 squadrons, but only 42 were approved & sanctioned (i.e. funded).

rad said...


hi prasun
the latest Islamist is mohathir Mohamed playing to the gallery and saying he will not deport zakir naik by giving him PR? playing to the gallery ?
on what moral and legal grounds is he saying so?Its like pakistan shielding hafiz saeed?

we seem to be well on our way of productionizing the astra missile and moving on to the qrsam version . Why is there no talk or even agenda to make an IIR missile like the python or asraam?.

has the python 5 been ditched for the LCA for good or trial still going on? what exactly is th e integration problem? how is the asraam getting along. ? what missile would you personally prefer to go on to to the LCA?



what is th e next gen Israeli AAM ?

now that piddling maldives president is tying up with pakistan to embarrass us . can all the deals with china and pak be reviewed by the next incumbent?. I do believe that the people of maldives are more empathetic to india than the president ?






Anonymous said...

https://thewire.in/communalism/bjp-minister-jayant-sinha-gau-rakshaks-convics-ramgarh-lynching

What do you think sir? For good sake he is Harvard alumni...Do they teach this kind of religiousity in their university or is he trying to go according to manusmriti ? What do think opposition should do?

Ron

Gessler said...

Prasun ji, regarding your reply to JASSS GILL above, it appears there is a Delhi-class DDG already present at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai undergoing some type of deep refit/upgrade. The 100mm main gun has been removed, as have the 16 x Uran-E missile launchers.

https://imgur.com/a/bMWjRt9

What's going on with that ship? Is it the MLU or only a periodic refit of some sort? Would the main gun and the ASCM launchers be removed if it was only a periodic refit?

VMT in advance.

Chanakya Chatterjee said...

Hi Prasun

Thanks for your reply, as usual informative and to the point.

1. You did miss answering on what the role of HUMINT is with the agencies of the world's democracies (Esp India, US, Israel & EU and even JApan) to seive out fact and fiction of the RUssian and Chinese PR & Propaganda machine.

2. I do strongly believe that the extra space on the Project 15 and 15A DDGs and the 17 and 17A FFGs are with an eye to BARAK ER ... 32 Barak 8 plus 32 reloads is far less than what the ships can accomodate in terms of SAM, esp compared to similar or lesser tonnage vessels like the RN DDG, USN DDG, PLAN DDG etc. When do we see the Naval Barak ER with 120km plus range tested or is the range at 150km.

3. India seems to be playing on the US desire to blacklist Russia by releasing statements saying they are reopening negotiation on the PAKFA (Saying it was economics that caused the deal to fall apart) ... Is this a ploy for the Predators and F35 or is it smart play by seeing who out of US or Russia gives us a better deal and also buying time to see how the Putin - Trump meet plays out?

Looking forward to your reply

Oh and also ... 2 more questions ?

what after 15A - is there anything comparable to Type 55 or Ticordonga Cruisers on the cards esp as escorts for Vikramaditya and Vikrant and later the 40K Tonne LPDs. Is there anything at design stage - there must be (i am hoping)

the STOBAR carriers can accomodate the Rafale N - that is established - the problem is size - How many Rafale N can Vikramaditya and Vikrant carry - given the wing sizes (Consider hangar, deck and even lift sizes) - Currently Vikramaditya can carry a max 20 MIG 29K or LCA N (as and when) and Vikrant (24 nos - because of its better design) is my knowledge - Pls correct me if i am wrong

Cheers

Chanakya Chatterjee said...

@Rad - it is my belief that the INS Delhi is replacing its Russian ASMs with Brahmos, getting an MF STAR radar

About the main gun i don't know ... maybe its time for the 127mm gun ...

Prasunda pls update us all

Cheers

Chanakya Chatterjee said...

Prasunda

http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2018/07/russia-offers-to-jointly-design-build.html


Sounds like a bloody good deal ... the only problem with the Ruskies is its always a good and a bad deal at the same time ... They helped us with everything from Arihant and down and yet went far over budget with Vikramaditya .... they quote low and then inflate after getting tje buyer by the balls

How do we suggest we create a binding agreement that forces them to stick to every commitment from budget to time - Its not impossible esp at a time when trump has their economy by the balls - cant India do a military deal for the Subs which includes punitive damages in Oil/ Gas deals where the costs are much higher ... And yes also include rewards for before time deliveries to give them an incentive to sign the dotted line

Pls advice

Cheers

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To RAD & SENTHIL KUMAR: That Malaysia is legally WRONG in offering protection to Zakir Naik is proven by a Malaysian lawyer here:

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/07/07/lawyer-malaysia-legally-obliged-to-deport-naik/

So what next? Elementary: Malaysia should be made to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of its decision, i.e. India should immediately cancel all orders for importing Malaysian Palm Oil & should instead place orders for this commodity from Indonesia. This has been a time-tested formula & very soon one will find Malaysia doing a course-correction.

To RAD: Because IIR-guided missiles represent the cutting-edge of optronic guidance & if Indian industry hasn’t been able to fabricate such sensors for bigger missiles like the AD-1, then logically such sensors are impossible to be homegrown for smaller missiles like SRAAMs. Python-5 has not yet been officially ditched.

To RON: Maybe has was recently afflicted with Hand-Foot & Mouth disease!

To GESSLER: Those are periodic refits & are not the same as mid-life upgrades. During such refits, for obvious reasons all explosive materials are removed prior to the warship entering the drydock. The main gun too has to be removed for corrosion-related checks & servicing.

To SHUBHOMOY CHATTERJEE: 2) Range of Barak-8ER is 120km & it has already been tested several times in Israel. 2) Both the IL-214 MRTAS & FGFA are now off the table & nothing will proceed on these 2 fronts. The Rafale MMRCA today is far more superior to the Su-57, rest assured. The Type 18 DDG is already on the drawing boards for the past 2 years. Rafale-N can NEVER be accommodated on either the INS Vikramaditya or the IAC-1 due to the smaller dimensions of the deck elevator. Nor can the Rafale-N be expected to take off from a SYOBAR carrier decxk with full armament load. Even the MiG-29K cannot & that’s why the IN to date has NEVER shown any photo or videoclip of a fully armed MiG-29K taking off from INS Vikramaditya. All flight qualifications of armed MiG-29K were conducted in Russia’s White Sea & not in the warmer waters of the IOR where operating conditions are totally different. As for SSKs, do refer to my reply above on July 7, 2018 at 5:50AM.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To KAUSTAV: Resorting to such shootings by security forces is perfectly accepted on a universal basis as being a way of establishing the rule of law. The shootings were publicly conducted & were not done in any hidden manner as staged encounters or custodial deaths are. In fact, resorting to such law enforcement measures in a sustained manner will eventually induce both fear & fatigue among the protestors & there is no need to be apologetic about it.

Meanwhile, many new revelations will very soon emanate from the US, where Pakistan’s biggest money launderer Altaaf Khanani has now made a plea bargain. Now, all the information which the so-called investigative agencies of India have so far unable to fathom WRT 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts will soon be made public by the US. This will pertain to: 1) How & why was Dawood Ibrahim made to cooperate with the ISI? 2) How the shipments of IED-making materials took place & from where in Pakistan? 3) How was the entire operation financed & by whom? Here are further background reading & viewing materials:

In 1961, Karachi's seething Bolton Market was an epicentre for dirty money. Currency traders hawked US$ from stalls and shanties, hoping to snare a passing businessman or corrupt official. Among these street dealers was Abdul Sattar Khanani, a Gujarati who settled in Karachi after the partition of India. He was a Memon, a line of mercantilists which dated to the 15th century renowned for a canny grasp of numbers. Yet the gift seemed to have skipped a generation. Abdul Khanani's family business struggled. Then, in May that year, his fortunes changed forever. His wife gave birth to identical twin boys, Muhammad Javaid and Altaaf Sattar. The twins would soon demonstrate the knack for business that had eluded their father. In 1984, they formed Khanani & Kalia Int’l, or KKI. By the late 1990s, the company had transformed into one of the largest currency traders in Pakistan, with a web of remittance agents across the world. The company's reach relied heavily on hawaala, an informal money transfer system so old it once greased the Silk Road. When a customer in Sydney needed to send $100,000 to an associate in Dubai, Khanani's agents in both cities ran a line of credit between each other. The Sydney agent kept the money given to him but assigned it as a debt he owed to his counterpart in the UAE, who disbursed $100,000 from his own funds. When the time came for money to travel in the opposite direction, the reverse took place, the debt was discharged and the ledger wiped clean.

Cont'd below...

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

When it came to evading police scrutiny, the scheme was brilliant for its 8th century simplicity. And Khanani's business soared. While in 2007 and 2008 alone, KKI's official banking records showed the company handled $2.3 billion, the true figure was many times higher. The hawaala-based operation was turning over $16 billion annually. Khanani was shifting huge volumes of hard currency across the border into war-ravaged Afghanistan, much of it going to heroin producers. Altaaf Khanani was also a close associate of India's most-wanted crime boss, Dawood Ibrahim, the man blamed for bombings in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people. Khanani was also washing money for Al Qaeda. The businessman was careful, however. To evade the central bank, whose headquarters were directly across the road from Bolton Market, he and his family ensured they ran the criminal transactions separately, through a parallel business. The shadow operation had its own staff, its own computer servers, its own accounting software. And how money moved between these two streams, the legitimate and illegitimate, was a very clever game. It was a game which Altaaf personally administered. He awed others with a remarkable ability to recall large volumes of transaction data. A confidential report prepared by the Pakistan Federal Police described him as a "mastermind". Later, investigators who interviewed him would marvel at the man's intellect. He could recall phone numbers from memory when asked, he knew bank account numbers, business names, multiple exchange rates. As KKI grew in prominence, it was inevitable that it would attract the interest of law enforcement. Her Majesty's Customs & Excise & the National Crime Agency in the UK ran complex international investigations targeyting Khanani's network from as early as 1997. They traced hundreds of millions of Pounds across Spain, Italy, Germany & the Netherlands. But Altaaf would evade capture. He was cautious, and miserly. He didn't stray from his bases of Karachi and Dubai, where the rules were lax and where he wielded political influence. He had become indispensable to many within Pakistan's corrupt body politic: civil servants, politicians and military top-brass. Some of the most powerful people in Pakistan and institutions in Pakistan were clients of KKI. It had tremendous clout. Finally, a financial crisis in 2008 forced Islamabad to move on KKI. At the time, the company was handling 40% of all of Pakistan's foreign currency transactions. On November 8 that year, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided its head office in Karachi and franchises in Lahore and Abbottabad. Eight senior figures, including Javaid Khanani, were arrested. But at the time of the raids, Altaaf Khanani was in Dubai. The FIA alleged the company had illegally siphoned US$10 billion out of Pakistan. But few in the centres of power seemed to want to see the case proceed. For fear of their own identities being revealed, a very wide spectrum of very powerful interests mobilised in order to try and protect these [KKI] people. The prosecution was spectacularly undermined. In 2010, a critical affidavit omitted the names of the very KKI Directors who had been originally arraigned. A new national financial crimes statute was introduced which was so full of holes that a senior FIA figure complained publicly it was "drafted by a money-launderer". The following year, a specially convened banking court acquitted the eight company officials, and in 2013, Altaaf was also exonerated by the District and Sessions Court. In Karachi rumours ran rife that the bribe paid was in nine figures.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-05/the-billion-dollar-bust/9383890

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-EITHd4EVs

Unknown said...

Hi Prasun,

Why do these so called defence and foreign policy experts write ups always demean India and Indian government:

https://thewire.in/diplomacy/wuhan-summit-modi-xi-india-china/amp/

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To SRINIVASA NANDURI RAMANUJAM: Why? Because they operate with the help of pre-conceived notions of inferiority & an overblown perception of China's full-spectrum superiority. For instance, no one bothers to explore why Xi Jinping repeatedly talks about ensuring the PLA's war preparedness. In any normal self-respectong armed forces, no one will require such repeated reminders, but in the PLA's case such reminders are reqd because the PLA's war preparedness levels are absymal & have already been admitted to as such by the Communist Party of China as well as by PLA top-brass. For instance, this was admitted to as much by the PLA’s Gen He Lei, one of the more hawkish voices asserting Beijing’s absolute rights to the South China Sea and elsewhere, when he made a telling observation at a Shangri La Dialogue-2018 in Singapore last month that reveals the PLA’ss biggest weakness: China can’t match India where it counts. “I am retiring soon. My one big regret is that I never had a chance to fight in a war,” Gen. He remarked. He correctly identified what the Academy of Military Science of the PLA had previously admitted was the biggest weakness of China’s armed forces: inexperience. The PLA, PLAAF and PLAN, all owned by China’s Communist Party, has never fought a real war after 1949. Its missions since then have centred around humanitarian relief and policing its own borders. Besides a brief fight with India in 1962 and Vietnam in 1979, the entire post-World War-II period for China has been peaceful. Put simply, the PLA's propaganda depts hugely overstate their hard power application potential & there are many who buy it lock-stock & barrel. So much so that even a former Commandant (still-serving Vice Admiral) of the IN's War College at a recent seminar totally failed to tell his audience that none of the PLAN's FFGs were powered by gas-turbine engines, as opposed to the IN operating gas turbine-powered FFGs since 2004!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

South Korea's Spartan 3000 Decapitation Unit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0umx5w9gfCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2bM5aMBP7A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dGCkeolt7c

Kaustav said...

Prasunda

Thanks for the clarity and information It does seen the Indian game is on now while POK protest against terror camps are highlighted setting the stage for liberation of these unfortunates.
http://zeenews.india.com/india/protests-in-pok-over-rising-pakistan-backed-terrorist-activity-along-loc-2123050.html
So while ExCM Madame Moofti rants about J&K toin CPEC, India can do do as soon as we liberate and get back the area it passes through. After which we can fulfil her other dream of India Pakistan China having great overland trade links via CPEC silk route and with Central Asia to boot.
Meanwhile our perpetual client state, Pporkistan is changing patrons from US to China and ensuring future peace on India's western border as exists on the eastern Indo-China stretch.
Pakistan’s currency crisis: China’s the problem and solution : https://sc.mp/2m0UVZW

Prranshu Yadav said...

Why has the author of the following book stated that after Indo-US nuclear deal India stopped development of MIRVs and a 12000 km range ICBM and capped the yield of its nuclear weapons to 20KT? I know you have said that India is actively developing MIRVs and I vary much want India to. But why hasn't any MIRV test been publicised so far and why have all the Agni-5 tests so far been without MIRVs?

http://www.freepressjournal.in/book-reviews/sharpening-the-arsenal-indias-evolving-nuclear-deterrence-policy-by-gurmeet-kanwal/1311971

Anonymous said...

Prasunda,

1) Didn't the PLA fight in the Korean war from 1950-1953? The entire post WW2 period for the PLA could therefore, not be called peaceful.

2) Wasn't the 1979 war with Vietnam also on a larger scale than any conflict India has fought? There were tens of thousands of KIA on both sides.

3)As for inexperience since then, would our experience in CoIn+Kargil give us a big edge over PLA in an actual conflict?

Ashwatthama

Unknown said...

Hello sirji....
1.Not trying to dig old grave but what was your pal trying to say:
https://twitter.com/indiatoday/status/1012365344416002048?locale=es

2.Sir how do you see the future in Indian subcontinent as that Taliban Khan seems to be prevailing in upcoming elections.
3.Many foreigners all of a sudden are taking anti-India stance,especially journos.Why so?Is it psy-ops tactic by ISI?
4.Is it true that that Rabinder Singh fella is dead?What was the intention of CIA?

Harsh said...

Sir, after launch of remote sensing satellite by China for the jihadi neighbour, which I believe is purely for military purpose. What would be impact on Indian army's operational plans? We won't be able to undertake large scale surprise offensives on borders. So no POK slicing now?
Do you really think when our rupee is 69 for a dollar, unemployment is running high, many parts of country are flooded, govt will order army for a cross LOC area grabbing operation?
Sorry if I sound negative.

Unknown said...

Hi Prasun sir,

Thank you for your reply.

So another day and another story by our Desi chamatkar:
http://idrw.org/why-is-the-govt-starving-the-navy/

My question is where are the funds. LPH, modern destroyers and frigates, mcmvs, opvs, ssks and ssns, not to mention helicopters, all this are needed and this guy is hell-bent on iac2.

And China launhed 2 satellites for Pakistan to provide remote sensing information for China's "Belt and Road" mega-project.

Scientists said it would also help Pakistan keep watch on India. Interesting development. China is doing it's bidding to hyphenate India and Pakistan. Don't they get it, by this actions they are pushing India the other way.

And there is this thought provoking article about Indo Pacific. When I read I could not help but marvel over indian foreign policy of really calling Chinese bluff about our maritime strategy. May be my assessment is wrong but at least I see some attempts being done here:

http://www.atimes.com/is-india-shifting-the-goalposts-in-indo-pacific-debate/

Regards,
Srinivasa Nanduri

Mohan said...

Prasun sir,
1.As north Korea in the process of denuclearization, china can now focus on taiwan invasion. What are the future development that can take place for Taiwan?
2 unrelated question to the topic:
If US reveals ufo,advance ufo technology and alien what would be the implication for the world?

Regards

Ashish Gautam said...

hellow sir, VMT for last reply.
how r u these days?
sir ye OKHOTNIK drone k bare mei kuch detailed info ho to btaiye.
2018 mei iski testing ka start hona expected hai. or kuch ho to btaiye.

Anonymous said...

https://indianexpress.com/article/education/proposed-jio-institute-gets-eminence-status-with-iits-and-iisc-5252453/
Can there be any better example for crony capitalism....sad thing is, even the opposition may not have balls enough to question this........even they may be swooning for his money

Ron

Satya said...

LOL check this Prasun da, bankrupt jihadis are collecting funds from general public for building dams https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/09/lackluster-response-to-appeal-for-dams-fund-irks-cjp/

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To KAUSTAV: China is indeed BOTH the problem & solution WRT Pakistan. And how so? And this is something all the bleeding liberal hearts of Lutyens’ Delhi consistently fail to grasp when expressing their sympathy for Nawaz Sharif & Co. In essence, the entire general elections process & its outcome in Pakistan has been ENGINEERED by the PA, but at whose behest? Indeed its is at China’s behest, which is close to a psychological depression after witnessing first-hand the gigantic corruptive gluttony of both the PPP & the PML-N. And this came out recently when it was revealed that the contract value for the Multan-Sukkur Expressway was jacked up by 40% by the PML-N’s bagman Saifur Rehman, who is based in the UAE & who earlier was also instrumental in securing the LNG supply contract from Qatar, & who in the mid-1990s was as also instrumental in helping the then PML oust Benazir Bhutto from power on corruption charges. China therefore has told the PA that enough is enough & both the PPP & PML-N need to stay away from power. The PA then decided to engineer the emergence of a hung-Parliament where the kingmakers will be the 140+ ‘independent’ MPs who have defected from different political parties but who have been assured of winning the elections, who will be supported by the religiosity-inspired extremests who are being mainstreamed, with Imran Khan Niazi’s PTI emerging as the the party with the largest number of winning MPs, but still not large enough to singlehandedy form the next govt. And the reason for this is that the Punjabi-dominated PA does not want to see a Pathan/Pakhtoon becoming all-powerful. The PA has therefore ensured that Punjab-origin MPs get together to form a PA-orchestrated national coalition & thereby form the next govt. So the PA will continue to fight against the Balochis, Pakhtoons & Sindhis & will never have to fight with fellow Punjabis. And yet, despite all such clearcut indications, the ‘blind netas’ of Hindoostan remain oblivious to such realities. Hence, kindly rest assured that when operations to forcibly Pakistan from PoK commence, they won’t be undertaken just because the Govt of India wants to, but rather because of a firm & hard knock emanating from both Uncle Sam & Russia.

To PRRANSHU YADAV: It is not that author you are referring to, but instead this is the book & its author, who is India’s foremost strategic bandalbaaz:

https://www.amazon.in/Staggering-Forward-Narendra-Indias-Ambition/dp/0670089699/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1531143998&sr=1-2&refinements=p_27%3ABharat+Karnad

https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/india-must-revise-its-nuclear-policy-and-keep-its-strategy-opaque/story-MRwcgzYXypIHf1j0V5iUoI.html

I had already explained earlier why full-scale MIRV testing hasn’t commenced, i.e. the vessels containing the MIRV-tracking radars hasn’t been commissioned as yet. And it will be better to stay away from such books, since their authors canl;t even tell the difference between theoretical physics & experimental physics!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ASHWATTHAMA: 1 & 2) The PLA fought in both the Korean War & in the Sino-Vietnam War but only the PLA’s army component fought those wars. The PLAAF & PLAN didn’t as part of a total war effort & therefore the PLA never fought full-scale wars. Nor was the Sino-Vietnam large-scale because it was fought only along a narrow frontage & not all along the China-Vietnam border. 3) Definitely so.

To HARSH: Here’s the explanation on the Pak satellites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTwwpYPBIiY

The economic & financial situation in India in both 1965 & 1971 was far more worse than it is today.

To SRINIVASA NANDURI RAMANUJAM: LoLz! Thought-provoking article? Looks like the writer of that article is residing in a different planet altogether. Does he not even know that all ASEAN countries except Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam & Myanmar have annual naval exercises with the US under the CARET series? Does he not know that most ASEAN countries have been pressing India to play a more active naval role in the South China Sea? After all, if India stands for freedom of navigation there, then it is not just enough to make statements or sermons about it, but instead the IN’s warships must exercise their freedom of navigation in that area. Only then will India be taken seriously. Lastly, anyone who believes or assumes that Donald Trump is whimsical is himself exposing himself as a moron. For no whimsical character can ever become a multi billionaire. And that perhaps explains why North Korea quickly went about sealing the entrances to all the tunnel-shafts through publicized explosions, fearing that the US will eventually want material evidence of North Korea’s nuclear WMD capabilities. So, if no radioactive residue was discovered in the upper atmosphere around the weapons test-site, then surely the US would then want to approach those tunnel-shafts in order to obtain undeniable material evidence, which I’m sure never existed.

To RON: Why are you stunned by all this? Haven’t you heard of similar institutes created by the Tatas & Birlas? And they by the way do a lot more fundamental research than the IITs & IISCs. And exactly how many IITs & IISCs in India offer PhDs on subjects like GSM technologies? In a tiny country like Israel alone, there are more than 6,500 PhD-holders in GSM technologies. Instead of achieving such feats, India goes ga-ga over the world’s second-largest cellphone production plant in NOIDA! Bahut hi dardnaak, afsausnaak, sharmnaak aur khaufnaak surat-e-hall hain!!!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To INTOLERANT PERSON: LoLz! What my ‘pal’ was explaining (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-piigaF4wg) was that while the the ‘netas’ of Hindoostan took great relish in the tactical victories scored by the IA in September 2016, these netas totally lost out to Pakistan at the strategic-level. What that means is that:

1) by the Indian DGMO stating on September 29, 2016 that the strikes by the IA were conducted along the LoC, India had officially admitted that the IA never crossed the LoC, when actually it did. This statement by the DGMO was made due to fears expressed by India’s unduly ‘scared netas’ about the PA’s retaliation, even though the IA’s top-brass had explained to these ‘scared netas’ that the PA was incapable of staging retaliations in kind.

2) due to the IA’s DGMO expressing his regrets to his PA counterpart about loss of life to the PA’s troops & also assuring the PA that no further actions of this kind would be undertaken in the near future, the PA felt emboldened to firstly deny that any cross-border raids by the IA had taken place, & secondly to retaliate by infiltrating Pak terrorists across the LoC on an industrial scale. In other words, India failed to both display & exercise sub-conventional deterrence.

What any self-respecting Govt of India should have done was to first begin stockpiling the essential war-reserves of arms & ammo between mid-2014 & mid-2016, & only then commence cross-LoC raids on a sustained basis for a 6-month period from September 2016 till August 2017. Instead, exactly the opposite was done, which resulted in great losses to civilian/military lives & properties along the LoC & WB. So, just like in 1999, India’s conventional military deterrence posture totally failed, all due to the inability of India’s ruling ‘netas’ to understand terms like horizontal & vertical escalation, & conventional military deterrence. So NaMo has displayed the same immaturity as was displayed in Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947-48, by Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1965-66, by Indira Gandhi in 1971-1972, by Rajiv Gandhi in 1984-1985, by P V Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s, by A B Vajpayee in mid-1999, & b y Dr MMS in 2011 when the beheadings of IA’s Jawans commenced.

And here was the original video released by the PMO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFrXpa5WpoM&t=93s

And this was then cut, sliced etc etc by all other TV channels. Now if the shithead BJP spokesperson is claiming that the Govt of India never released such footage to anyone, then this logically ought to constitute a breach of secrecy & hence a violation of the Official Secrets Act. So why has the Govt of India not yet constituted a Board of Enquiry to find out exactly how such video footages were ‘leaked’? So, do you now see exactly what kind of arseholes are calling the shots within this present-day govt?

As for Imran Khan Niazi & PTI, do read my comments above addressed to KAUSTAV. 3) Like what? 4) They usually meet the same fate as that of the British spy Guy Burgess and for similar reasons too.

Kaustav said...

Prasunda

VMT. BTW your response regarding the proposed JIO Institute by Reliance Industries is spot on and assuredly if the Manpower Training and Internal Skill upgradation by RIL of its employees is any indication, the Ambanis will do well. Your readers could do well to read Atlas Shrugged and the philosophy of Ayn Rand. India's salvation may very well lie in the enlightened self interest of these conglomerates and their institutions. It is not just the Tatas/Reliance/Bodmas but also other industrial families like the Kalyanis Bharat forge,Premjisof Wipro, Godrej, Mahindras, Kirloskars, Kelkars, Gharda Chemicals and numerous large and SMEs whose vision might just propel India in the future

DAshu said...

Disappointing to know about the current govt and NaMo to be particular about his skill and will. I still think he is better than the rest to take back entire PoK. Hope to see a better sense in them and give free hand to Armed forces sooner than later.

panic said...

https://youtu.be/ZhgLtsqK44k

Sir what is this controversy all about, regarding Indo-Myanmar Border Pillar.

buddha said...

https://m.timesofindia.com/world/pakistan/give-me-atom-bomb-ill-wipe-out-holland-pakistans-rising-islamist-politician-khadim-hussain-rizvi/articleshow/64930191.cms
West should take a note of the comment

buddha said...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-wcVtxkYzfk
They Are Here: Huge Alien Craft In Our Solar System
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=frbhePgen_0
Astronomers Delivering the Lunar Truth. UFO’s and Alien Structures
Sir watched these vdo.... Interesting

Unknown said...

@Prasoon there has to be some reason for release of this video at this point in time. There is no doubt that these videos have been officially released. now what could be the reason for such release. to my understanding the following:
1. to embarrass the Pak army. a type of psychological war. but to me this makes sense only if pt 2 below happens
2. to covertly hint them something like this or more is further awaiting

could you please correct if i am wrong.

thanks

kunal

Aditya Kamble said...

http://idrw.org/india-offered-diesel-submarine-design-to-taiwan-to-take-on-china-taiwan-media/
Hello Prasun,
This one really is a bummer. When did we have an indigeneous diesel electric sub design to offer it to Taiwan. Is it a fake news..?

Rajesh Mishra said...

The war in Pakistan will be similar on the lines of the Syrian war. US and Russia will not be on the same side but rather on the different sides. US will destroy all the Anti-American Punjabi muslamics and Russia will destroy all the Pro-American Punjabi muslamics. Con-temporarily India will separately liberate the POK inclusive of G&B. However there will be one common point that all will mutually cooperate in destroying all the evil nukes of the Pakistan.

Varun said...

Hope Indian army takes Haji pir pass by taking full advantage of this www.indiandefensenews./2018/07/pakistan-army-to-deploy-371388-troops.html

Kaustav said...

LOLzzz Rajesh Mishra, Nostradamus reborn.... Very funny satire ;-)

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ASHISH GAUTAM; There are 2 stealthy UAS being developed in Russia, the SKAT by RAC-MiG & Ohotnik by Sukhoi OKB.

https://www.uasvision.com/2017/08/03/sukhois-okhotnik-b-project/

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a22093902/russian-combat-drone-allegedy-set-to-fly-this-year/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/06/03/meet-skat-russias-stealthy-drone/

https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/5813/10417156.9/0_129a64_69a41d49_orig.jpg

https://vpk.name/file/img/ohotnik-u_080617_2.jpg

To UNKNOWN: LoLz! In international relations, disclosure of any data or iomagery by unknown sources does not count at all. The country making the disclosure should OWN it, i.e. officially acknowledge it it was the indeed the Govt the released the data/imagery. Now, this govt is compounding its already embarrassing errors by making an official BJP spokesperson say that the Govt of India never released any such data/imagery. So, if the Govt of India has never released it, which other authority has? Was it an organ of the govt of India that made an unauthorised release? If so, then what corrective action is being taken? Unless there are convincing answers to all such questions, NO ONE in the world will accept such data/imagery as being authentic, no matter who says what & whatever one believes. And this isn’t the first time such sheer stupidity was displayed by this Govt. ALL the previous video imagery released last year about PA bunkers being destroyed too went unacknowledged. And this certainly isn’t the way any self-respectong govt functions. The right way of doing it is to arrange a televised press-conference in which both the data & videoclips are officially displayed by an official spokesperson of the MoD. That’s why just after a week of conducting the cross-LoC raids, such a press-conference ought to have been organised by the MoD. But we are talking about a country whose govt-in-power cannot even have a Defence Minister for a functional 18-month period! That’s how incompetent & utterly IDIOTIC the top-level management is at the executive branch of this Govt of India!!!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To SUJOY MAJUMDAR: In that case the following ought to be uploaded into her Twitter account:

Pakistani Rowdiness in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXBjVn9J6cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFGP37wEog4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btWuw4RGF8g

Popular Protests in Rawalakot, PoK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl6yuR1f0ps

And who the hell takes RT seriously? Folks watch that channel only for obtaining comic relief!

2) Why the hell should any Govt confer ‘eminence’ status to any academic institution, regardless of whether or not such title conferments are conditional? Eminence is obtained through an established track-record, & cannot be awarded. And the management of all such institutions have to be fully autonomous, as per global norms. Since this common-sensical PoV has not been understood by the Minister & bureaucracy of the Human Resource Development Ministry, it only stands to reason that they are all MORONS who are hell-bent upon turning India into the world’s laughing stock.

To ADITYA KAMBLE: LoLz! It indeed is, since the making of such offers of just a design will be totally ignored by a country that has never built submarines in the past. What Taiwan requires is not just a SSK design, but it wants to know the methodology of constructing SSKs, which is very expensive as well as time-consuming.

To RAJESH MISHRA: Here’s an excellent programme on the future of Tejas LCA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH4C_31ypUM

To BUDDHA: A re-incarnation in Bhutan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-JdbDsf7T0

And yesterday’s press –conference by the DG of ISPR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf7CyqLMXHw

BENO said...

Sir
1.is it true that iaf will buy 110 fighters from abroad for which rfi has been issuedif ADA and Hal failed to develop Tejas mk2 as it was discussed by one of the panellist in the programme?
2.is there any headway regarding the Indian AWACS project?
3.is there any possibility that the government signs s 70b deal before the election in 2019?

Unknown said...

Fair point that government of india of the past and present do not know military tactics of vertical or horizontal escalation etc and hence novice in this. But then doubt remains that if they are not interested in any notary.operation then why exercise gaganshakti by iaf? I recall I had then also commented that this exercise may only be a practise session without any intent to do the actual operation. I recall you had replied that there is a political.intent behind this. Now it is appearing contradictory. Hope you may clarify as I am a little.confused here

Regards

Kunal

buddha said...

Really the program has aptly diagnosed the problem of LCA and described the remedy ..
It is on govt if they will take immediate action or delay and doom the project.

Ajay said...

Dear Sir

When will FATF Grey List start Biting and Hurting Pakistan

Also do you think that Without
A Second Round of Surgical Strikes Before Elections

Can PM Modi win 2019 elections

Millard Keyes said...

RAF 100 years old and a spectacular fly past
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnSVVcgntyc

Ashish Gautam said...

ok thnx.
I was directed to this website from wikileaks where i discovered a lot of info.
(1) what u say about it??
http://gginews.in/cia-spies-access-aadhaar-database/

(2) If its true then i think that CIA is already present in all Indian computers as most of them are windows/iOS/Linux OS based as these OS belong to USA based companies & their govt have access to all source codes etc... what u say??
Note - Even Intel can program its processors for spying purposes on every system... snapdragon, aplle too... what's your opinion?

Unknown said...

It is best to ask this question to a psephologist. As such ground reports suggest that congress is in severe shortage of money and many workers haven't been paid for months together. So your guess is as good as mine

Regards kunal

Rajesh Mishra said...

http://www.defencenews.in/article/IAF-may-take-over-Tejas-project-from-HAL-due-to-delays-559389

"Sources said IAF now wants a SDR (Software Defined Radio) onboard all FOC platforms, a latest addition, which was not envisaged earlier."

Please let me know what is this new requirement and how much it is important at this stage.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To BENO: 1) That’s the intent. Whether that’s backed up by a will to do so remains to be seen. Tejas Mk.2/LCA-AF Mk.2 is still in the design stage & has not yet entered the development stage. 2) Which project? There are 2 of them: procurement of 2 additional A-50I PHALCONs from Israel; & development of a homegrown solution using the A330-220 airframe. 3) Why should a govt be fearful of inking any multi-billion deal? It will have fears only if it has done something wrong. If no wrongdoing is done, then where’s the need to harbor any fear?

To BUDDHA: LoLz! Yes, that programme did diagnose the LCA’s problems, buit it totally failed to diagnose the IAF’s problem of declining MRCA fleets. For instance, no one asked the most important common-sensical question: where is the need for a L-MRCA & when in the 1980s itself it was evident that the world’s major air forces were opting for either a M-MRCA/H-MRCA mix (F-16 & F-15 in the US and MiG-29/Su-27) in the USSR) or just a M-MRCA fleet, who were the geniuses within the IAF who were insisting on the reqmt for L-MRCAs? To me, that was the genesis of the problem. Epecially since 1994, the IAF had decided to acquire Su-30MKI H-MRCA & by then itself the LCA reqmt ought to have morphed into the M-MRCA reqmt & hence the need for a heavier & more powerful MRCA. It was this singular lack of vision among IAF planners that continues to erxact a heavy price. Had this problem been overcome in 1994 itself, then by now one would seen the LCA-AF Mk.2 emerge as the M-MRCA & money would not have been wasted on the Tejas Mk.1 or Mk.1A. But no one from the IAF will go on-record with such an admission & there continues to exist a collective conspiracy of silence.

To AJAY: What you need to know is that election outcomes in either India or Pakistan are not dictated by which of the two bashes each other most. Elections have been, are & will always be about survival-related issues, i.e. roti, kapda aur makaan. Hence, if NaMo succeeds in proving to the Indian voters that his govt has delivered the promised goods & services, then the NDA-2 win win a second term.

To ASHISH GAUTAM: Possible, yes. But unlikely, because in India one can get away with far worse matters much much easier. How else can one explain Nirav Modi possessing seven different Indian Passports all registered in one single name? Or the NIA failing to draft a convincing enough chargesheet against Zakir Naik? After all, it was Bangladesh which first revealed that Zakir Naik’s speeches inspired the native Bangladeshi youth to gravitate towards ISIS propaganda. So why was the NIA unable to collaborate with Bangladesh when approaching Interpol? Because Interpol is now saying that the NIA has failed to produce any material evidence against Zakir Naik.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To UNKNOWN/KUNAL: You are ASSUMING that the various exercises conducted by the IAF or IN or IA are all approved by the Govt of India. They are not, nor are they reqd to. Such exercises are routine in terms of rehearsing various types of contingency plans that are tailored to match various scenarios. And the reason why this is the case is that there are no precise war directives issued by the Govt of India. In fact, they never have been ever since the country’s independence. All war directives issued by the MoD to date have been vague & ambivalent, such as “preparing for a two-front war”. Consequently, it has been left to the 3 armed service chiefs to visualize their own respective warfighting scenarios & plan accordingly, which are then reflected in the exercises. In other words, the exercises lack coherence & realism. For instance, when it has been known since May 1998 that the subcontinent will no longer witness conventional wars involving deep thrusts inside enemy territory across the IB, the IA neverthgeless still continues to conduct Corps-level exercises aimed at capturing enemy territory in the Cholistan desert. And the only former IA officer whop has criticized this & has urged urgent corrective action to date has been Lt Gen (Ret’d) H S Panag.

I must also add that (which I forgot to yesterday) it was the INC that had since the mid-1990s pioneered the totally flawed practice of conducting cross-LoC raids & keeping them covert, thereby denying the Indian citizens the right to know that their Army had conducted such revenge attacks. And the BJP adhered to this discredited practice as well, all of which led to disastrous consequences, one of them being that India’s citizens felt or assumed that India was always at the receiving end of Pakistan’sponsored terror attacks, and the other being the emergence of a perception that the IA was incapable of going on the offensive. This led to enormous psychological pressure being applied on both Indian citizens & the IA, & hence all the unnecessary chest-thumping among Indian citizens & the ‘desi’ media going ballistic after the declaratory Sept 28, 2016 cross-LoC raids, which then made it impossible for the INC to defend its policy of keeping such past cross-LoC raids by the IA covert & unacknowledged. And all this has since unnecessarily led to political polarisation. I therefore am a strong advocate of officially/publicly declaring the conduct of such operations within a fortnight itself by offering video proof of such ops, so that one can avoid needless & damaging political point-scoring, & also for raising the morale of the armed forces & encouraging India’s citizens to maintain their faith & confidence in India’s armed forces.

WRT INC’s funding crisis, all I can say it that the INC today is a poor, funds-starved party but whose leaders are all filthy-rich!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To RAJESH MISHRA: The IAF had mandated RAFAEL’s SDR as far back as 2015 & that’s why at the 2016 DEFEXPO RAFAEL had showcased it & I had photographed it & uploaded it here:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--MrzhtgefBQ/WZS7Ns8-e5I/AAAAAAAANYw/v9Z6i28c9HQc0IG5rveG29CSnckEExU0QCLcBGAs/s1600/RAFAEL%2527s%2BBNET-AR%2BSDR.jpg

Now, coming to the IAF taking over the Tejas project, one needs to go back to history. The reason the IN was able to become a builder’s navy (designing & developing various types of warships) was because throughout the 1950s & 1960s hundreds of IN personnel were sent to the UK to oversee the refit & upgrade of various Royal Navy warships that were declared as surplus stock & were therefore offered for sale at mouth-watering prices & which India therefore acquired. As a result, the IN was exposed to every aspect of warship-building in the warship designers’ offices, the shipyards & at the test-ranges. Hence, the IN rapidly learnt to scale the learning curve of warship design, development & building at a quick pace. This wasn;t the case with the IA & IAF, which sent its personnel abroad only for testing/evaluating already-developed products & for delivery acceptance/conversion training. Hence, the IAF & IA never learnt how to design aircraft or armoured vehicles & what were the industrial challenges for producing them. This then led to the DRDO jumping in to develop such products, but the DRDO only had engineers who studied foreign industrial patents & tried to back-engineer them, but the DRDO’s lack of industrial exposure led to insurmountable difficulties in the arena of production engineering, which the DPSUs wre incapable of as well since most of them were created solely for licenced-production of foreign-designed/engineered prtoducts/platforms. Consequently, the IAF & IA utterly disregarded the need to possess their own in-house product development directorates. The final nail in the coffin of indigenous MRCA development was driven in the mid-1980s when ADA was created & HAL was totally sidelined—this being the brainchild of the then PM Rajiv Gandhi. Hence, from a human resource standpoint, there’s no one within the IAF or IA today who can claim to have any design-n-development-related expertise pertaining to combat aircraft or armoured vehicles. Hence it will be impossible for the IAF to ever take full ownership & liability risks for any MRCA developmental effort in the foreseeable future. The only optimal solution therefore is to make ADA answerable to HAL.

Anonymous said...

Prasun Sir, VMT for that discussion's link and wonderful and convincing arguments in your comments to BUDDHA & RAJESH MISHRA.
1) Do you think selecting L-MRCA was taken because of IAF's vast experience with Mig-21s without observing general world wide trend ?
2) Another suggestion by one of the panelists said--- "Provide lands to private players with in vast unused lands with DPSUs to fast track Land Acquistion,Environmental clearances etc "
do DPSUs have such large lands suitable for new factories by Private Players? If there, Will the DPSUs be forced to give them by any Gov?
What are your views on this?
3)"Tejas Mk.2/LCA-AF Mk.2 is still in the design stage"---
Is it designed by ADA or like Mk1A it is HAL's?
4)Vice Marshal said AMCA's future lies in Mk.2, What do you feel? As you said even experienced players are going for JVs for 5th gens(japan,skorea,france) then what are Indian options? With whom can India go for JV?

Regards,
Vir

Swami Vrashtacharya said...

It is time Prasun babu started replying to the known Unknown as KOONAL given he persists with Prasoon!

VIKRAM GUHA said...

PrasunDa,

Hyderabad based CYIENT released a press release this week saying that they have developed a X-Band Transmit and Receive Module(TRM).

http://www.cyient.com/press/cyient-to-unveil-their-transformational-x-band-transmit-and-receive-module-at-the-farnborough-airshow/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=org-post&utm_term=pressrelease&utm_content=a-d&utm_campaign=2018-04-a-d-tradeshow-farnborough

1. Can this TRM be applied to India's existing air defence network ?

2. Did CYIENT develop this TRM all by themself or did they purchase the tech from some foreign Company ?

Thanks,
VIKRAM

Anonymous said...

Rao Anwar was not present when Naqeebullah was murdered, judge rules-
https://www.dawn.com/news/1419494/rao-anwar-was-not-present-when-naqeebullah-was-murdered-judge-rules

Prasun sir
We never heard of PTM again and this case is the spark that started all of it iirc.
Is Rao Anwar punjabi? Why is he being shielded?

Regards
Vir

Unknown said...

@ Prasoon in your thread "Decoding Ex Gagan Shakti" you mentioned the following:
"…..The conduct of the 14-day EX Gagan Shakti full-spectrum air-exercises by the Indian Air Force (IAF) from April 8 till 22, 2018 served as the first declaratory signalling by India that a coherent politico-military policy has at last emerged with regard to determining the final status of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK). It has thereby added the much-required teeth to India’s national endeavour, which was undertaken on February 22, 1994 when India’s Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution that firmly declared that the State of Jammu & Kashmir (J & K) has been, is and shall be an integral part of India and any attempts to separate it from the rest of the country will be resisted by all necessary means, and that Pakistan must unconditionally withdraw from PoK, which it had forcibly occupied through military means….."
I guess with the changed circumstances and confused signalling from the Government, it appears unlikely that any politico military policy towards Kashmir has coherently (emphasis added) emerged. Hence we all to that extent stand corrected as a matter of record.

Regards

Kunal

Kaustav said...

Prasunda,

The second NETRA AEW&CS system in Final Operational Clearance (FOC) configuration will be delivered to Indian Air Force by DRDO by end of this year. Which is all very well. But is that it? What happened to that 20 numbers of Netra type AEW that were to be acquired in addition to the larger rotodome equipped aircraft from Illyushin and Airbus?

joydeep ghosh said...

@Prasun da

1. this is unfair, the answer you gave to #Buddha reminds me that when i said why didnt IAF/DRDO take up Mirage 4000 lock stock and barrel you said it was not needed, now you are saying something on same lines

2. what you replied to #intorlerantperson, makes me feel this surgical strike declaration was tactical victory but strategic loss as now after trumpeting about it and blowing 56 inch chest after every terror attack people want a surgical strike as if it was halwa puri. even musharraf phone call publicizing was a blunder even hamid gul & AS Dulat said it

3. this khani lad reminds me of a article that said khanani & aftab batki worked hand in glove as the latter usd the formers network to peddle FICN, so if the former is behind bars why is the latter still out

4. heard HH Dalai lama is terminally ill, how true is that

btw the bengali man i talked about earlier as being involved in B2, i remember that ananadbazar ran articles about him, and that beverly hills 9010 was majorly shot at his hoome, but still cant remember his name, do you

thanks

Joydeep Ghosh

Unknown said...

Well thus is a doubt which needs to be clarified. At least I value prasoon opinions and would like to enrich my knowledge by engaging in a conversation instead of fence sitting like a monkey.

Regards

Kunal

just_curious said...

Prasun,

1 IS there a possibility of tejas mk 2 having internal weapons pod ??

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To VIR: 1) No, not because of that, but rather due to top-level political negligence of the criminal kind (that totally destroyed all hard-main gains by the IAF & HAL since the mid-1960s in terms of indigenous combat aircraft development), as well as some major espionage operations that were conducted in India by the US, France & the USSR. Will detail it all in a later thread. 2) That is a totally silly point of no value, sice most of the major private-sector players already have vast tracts of land as SEZs. 3) All Tejas LCA vvariants are designed by ADA. HAL only produces them. 4) He was referring to the LCA-AF Mk.2, and not AMCA Mk.2).

To VIKRAM GUHA: Not to air-defence networks, but to vectronics like active protection systems.

To KAUSTAV: The EMB-145I Netra is a sub-optimal AEW & CS solution when compared to platforms like A-50I PHALCON or the proposed A330-220 AEW & CS platform.

To JOYDEEP GHOSH: 1) Mirage 4000 was a heavy-MRCA like the F-15E & it wasn’t reqd back in the 1980s.

To JUST CURIOUS: LoLz! There’s no internal space even for inserting MAWS sensors & EW jammer and you want weapons to go inside the airframe?

Manu Singh said...

Prasun,

To VIR: 1) No, not because of that, but rather due to top-level political negligence of the criminal kind (that totally destroyed all hard-main gains by the IAF & HAL since the mid-1960s in terms of indigenous combat aircraft development), as well as some major espionage operations that were conducted in India by the US, France & the USSR. Will detail it all in a later thread.

What do you mean by that? Please elaborate !!

Kaustav said...

Prasunda

Thanks‌, just confirming my suspicions of the NETRA AEW&CS being a wasteful learning process with the usual terrible project mismanagement. Any respectable MIC would atleast make some sales outside. Nice things to sell what our own forces won't use it Like the Tejas Mk1, Netra AEW, ALH/LCH, Basic & Intermediate Jet Trainers, Arjun Mk1 Tanks‌, Dhanush Howitzers, Prahara/Prithvi TBMs, Akash SAMs, JVPCs,INSAS Small Arms and Ghaatak Assault Rifles etc. LOL. No buyers? Well‌, we ain't China. We can gift them to any poor sod who can junk it duly due to poor support & service.

Meanwhile the Su-57 gets junked by the Russkies, while C-17 Transports of the IAF shows 100% availability.
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-admits-defeat-su-57-not-going-into-mass-production-2018-7

The road ahead seems clear. Let's welcome Donald Trump for the Republic Day parade 2019, so he can get a clear picture of the huge arms market awaiting his country's MIC

Anonymous said...

What was the surgical strike all about?

Because we had been conducting them for forever. The PA and its elements have been conducting them for forever too.

Did this damage the image of the army?

RAT

Just_Curious said...

Prasun,
W.r.t tejas mk 2 design, wasn't it supposed to be a new design?? Disappointed that no thought has gone into a better design.. What is ur take on the update that IA is no longer going ahead with its mountain corps div..due to financial constraints.. Wud that impact future readiness w.r.t china in the eastern sector??

Aditya Kamble said...

Hello Prasun,
As the world's biggest buyer of palm oil, India can seriously hurt Malaysian exports by raising tariffs in reprisal for Mahathir's coddling of fugitive Zakir Naik, charged with aiding terror attacks. But when India hasn't acted even against Maldives, will it act against Malaysia?

Anonymous said...

Prasunda,

Saurav Jha tweets during his indigenization appreciation hour that MIRVing the Agni missiles has not been sanctined by GoI yet. He also claims that work remains to be done on the post boost vehicle.

1) If we till have work to do on PBV (which is the key to MIRV capability), how can we claim to be anywhere near possession of such a capability?

2) How true is the claim that GoI is yet to sanction MIRV development?

Dhrishtaketu

rad said...

hi prasun
you mentioned that the netra awacs was sub optimal in performance. I believe in actual war it could be . But still i believe that the program was a grand success as no one will give the tech as u often point out. I believe we should have more of them around as we will have only 3 awacs to go around which is woefully small for our country?

we have developed the software the , DSP modules ,bms software, esm ecm and comint . The main point is we have learnt the algo`s for the data fusion and radar target extraction .Now we are in a position to make a full fledged awacs due to the time money and tech we have invested ,so all fine.
will the desi awacs have a 4 sided array in the dome rather than a 3 sided as convention?

why is the 2 nd awacs taken a long time to be delivered ? is there any additional stuff they have put on it? refined it etc?

you mentioned that the making an IIR missile involves cutting edge eo tech .When we have made a missile like the astra then we can always get IIR FPA from Israel or france and put it on the missile . we do have some experience from the IIR based nag, helina regarding software for target discrimination etc .

we could have a long range silent missile in the from of IIR based ASTRA , much like the Russian philosophy of firing an IIR and a radar seeker missile for 100% kill probability.





Ankit Singh said...

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/taking-union-cabinet-for-a-ride-and-getting-away/

Prasun Da,
How true is this article.
Does anyone in GOI has idea about this?
This severly reduces the morale of our soldiers.

Ashish Gautam said...

hello sir. thanks for last reply.
u said correct, India ko koi b foreign intelligence agency chahe to easily civil war jaisi situation mei ghaseet sakta hai... coz differences baht hai or Indians bikte baht jaldi hai. Sorry if anyone feels bad after reading it... but its a fact.

Just_Curious said...

Prasun, is it true that raising of mountain corps division is now cancelled, if yes how much of an impact is it to preparedness against china & why is this govt not putting more money in defence
Why does this govt not come clean on rafale if there is nothing to hide & shutout wagging tounges

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To KAUSTAV: As I had explained earlier, the Netra’s main limitation/deficiency is its flight endurance of only 6 hours, hald that of the reqd figure because the IAF does not possess dozens of aerial refuelling tankers to increase the flight-endurance of such combat-support platforms. Matters would have been a lot better had the DRDO selected the Airbus A310-300 airframe as the platform instead of the EMB-145.

To RAT: It NEVER was a surgical strike. Instead, it was a low-intensity counter-terror operation. Surgical strike means an action that permanently removes the targetted structure/building/bunker. That wasn’t the case at all on Sept 29, 2016.

To JUST CURIOUS: LCA-AF Mk.2 is indeed a brand-new design that wil;l; have to be flight-tested from scratch, i.e. the process will have to last for at least 4 years. And where’s the need for MSC when the IA’s existing XIV Corps & XXXIII Corps can easily be augmented with extra armoured and mechanized regiments in order to give them offensive manoeuvre warfare capabilities? And what more is there to clarify about the Rafale contract? All the information is already out there in the public domain & in Dassault Aviation’s annual report for FY 2017.

To ADITYA KAMBLE: Just wait & see how events pan out. All I can say is that Zakir Naik’s days in Putrajaya, Malaysia, are numbered.

To Dhrishtaketu: So if we are to believe such claims, then can we also conclude that folks like Dr V K Saraswat & Avinash Chander were all lying in the past about the DRDO working on MIRVs? Can we then conclude that the construction of the MIRV-tracking vessel by HSL at Vizag was unauthorized & HSL has wasted the Indian taxpayer’s money & after a future CAG report this vessel will be sold off as scrap?

To RAD: Why could the Netra not be developed as a 360-degree AEW & CS? Why could 3 S-band triangular AESA arrays not be mounted on a bigger platform loike the A310-300 for which Airbus Military had already made an offer to the DRDO? The Netra’s 6-hour flight endurance is the principal limitation. If the IAF had possessed dozens of IL-78MKI AARs, then this would not have been a problem.

To ANKIT SINGH: The facts laid down there are all true. But the finger is being pointed at the wrong people, i.e. the bureaucrats. In reality, it is the ill-informed political ‘netas’ at the helm who are to blame for all this mess. Why can’t they just read-up & educate themselves on how matters are in the rest of the world? Or why can’t such issues be debated in the Parliament?

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To MANU SINGH: Former Cabinet secretary B G deshmukh explains it all:

No doubt the Congress party and other political parties in India have needed funds mostly to fight elections from 1947 when the country became independent. Till the middle of the 1960s, during the regime of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, collection of funds for the party was a more transparent business and business houses were also permitted to make open donations. Collection of funds for one's party was then not a highly competitive and corrosive practice corrupting the whole social, economic and political fabric as happened later. Indira Gandhi at the very beginning of her tenure as prime minister found that she was in dire need of funds to fight elections to establish herself as the undisputed leader of the Congress party. As I was then in Maharashtra I know that in that state she depended heavily on her loyal supporters Rajni Patel and Vasantrao Naik to raise funds and they did this by literally selling sheets of sea water in the Nariman Point area. Later, when she had established her supremacy in Indian politics, she decided that a far better way to collect funds for the party was through claiming cuts from foreign deals. Sanjay Gandhi perfected and refined this still further from 1972 onwards. When she came back to power in 1980, I was additional secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs. My colleagues told me that in January 1980 itself Sanjay Gandhi called senior officers from certain concerned ministries for giving orders and making deals and clearly and firmly told them how they should be finalized. Trusted senior officers were posted to ministries such as the defence ministry and also to the Department of Defence Production. Even the death of Sanjay Gandhi In mid-1980 did not change this practice as is evident from the following extracts.

B.K. Nehru writes (page 582 of his autobiography): The day after the funeral I asked Rajiv whether the money Sanjay had collected allegedly for the Congress was safe. He said all they found in the Almirah of the Congress office was Rs 20 lakhs. I asked how much Sanjay had collected. He held his head in his hands and said 'crores and uncounted crores'.

R. Venkatraman, former President of India writes (page 40 of his autobiography): J.R.D. Tata made a courtesy call on me . . . commenting on Rajiv's statement on Bofors ... it would be difficult to deny the receipt of commission by the Congress Party. He felt that since 1980 industrialists had not been approached for political contributions and that the general feeling amongst them was that the Party was financed bv commission on deals.

Cont’d below…

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

That the Prime Minister's House (of Rajiv Gandhi) had access to funds from abroad, I became aware of in a very curious way. After Arun Singh was shifted from the PMO to the Ministry of Defence, the cabinet secretary supervised the prime minister's special security force in a rather loose fashion and I became associated with this. Sometime in October 1986 one of the security officers at 7 Race Course Road said that two or three of them would be going to Italy within a couple of weeks for special training. I was rather upset as I had neither seen nor cleared that proposal but Rajiv Gandhi said that this had been arranged by the Prime Minister's House and 'the Party would bear the expenses'. I was not at all happy as the security force was not for Rajiv Gandhi but for the prime minister of India and, therefore, arrangements for training and its expenses should be borne by the government. Rajiv Gandhi agreed and asked my advice. I said that the training could be in Italy as already arranged but that the funds should be made available by the Intelligence Bureau, and to maintain secrecy I would speak to the comptroller and auditor general to accept whatever explanation was given by the Intelligence Bureau. When I met him again he said that the Intelligence Bureau should not bear the expenditure as it was not at all a happy situation that the prime minister's security arrangements had been taken away from it. I suggested that I would ask RAW to bear the expenditure from its secret funds. Rajiv Gandhi said that I should discuss and resolve this matter with Captain Satish Sharma. Satish Sharma said that Joshi, director of RAW, could speak to a certain Italian, whom he named, and settle the details. When I asked who he was, he had a hearty laugh and said that Joshi would know him. Joshi was more diplomatic and said that it might have escaped my memory that this person was Rajiv Gandhi's in-law. Joshi came to me after a week with a curious follow-up report. When his' Geneva office asked the Italian gentleman to make arrangements to pick up the amount in US dollars he said that Joshi himself should make arrangements to bring the amount in Italian currency and deliver it in Italy. Joshi was not at all happy with this as it would entail carrying about a quarter of a million US dollars in Italian currency in a big suitcase, which was sure to invite trouble. I told Joshi that I would clarify this. I told Rajiv Gandhi that the arrangement suggested was not acceptable, specially because the amount asked for was so large. He flushed and told me to forget the whole affair. Later I learnt that the Prime Minister's House was asked to be more discreet with me. The security officers were not sent to Italy for training but an Italian expert came to India (of course he became rather unpopular with the security force for he would throw his weight around).

Cont’d below…

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

V. P. Singh had resigned as defence minister on 12 April 1987 in connection with the HDW Submarine case. We were just recovering from this when the Bofors revelation exploded upon the scene from Sweden on 17 April. Rajiv Gandhi's argument was that the Bofors team should give the names of the recipients of commissions in writing or before the JPC itself. It was no use their giving the names orally, as the government would be subjected to all sorts of allegations of doctoring the Bofors1 team's evidence. I could appreciate this argument but I said that despite that we should informally get the names of the recipients so that we could quietly initiate action against them. And here was raised, for the first time, a doubt in my mind. Bofors would not offer to give the names of the recipients even orally unless it was sure that we would take no action against the recipients, otherwise its credibility in commercial circles would be damaged. No agency would be prepared to serve them if it feared that its identity could be disclosed. I therefore surmised that if the Bofors team was prepared to give the names orally it was that these would be so inconvenient to the government that it would v just keep quiet about the disclosure. At that time I was not aware of Arun Singh's outburst after he came out of the meeting with Rajiv Gandhi, so graphically described by General Sundarji in an interview later. Arun Singh resigned on 18 July. I had an uneasy feeling that the Prime Minister's Office knew the names of the recipients and had communicated them to the prime minister. The JPC was appointed on 12 August 1987. The Bofors' team came to India on 14 September and appeared before the JPC on 16 September. I was intrigued that Bofors' officials did not disclose the names of the recipients to the JPC but said that they had given this information to the defence ministry and the Prime Minister's Office.

Gen Sundarji's interview appeared in the 15 September 1989 issue of India Today in which he said that he had advised the Ministry of Defence that 'if they threatened to cancel the gun contract there was a 99.9 per cent chance that Bofors would cough up the information about who received the money'. His contention was that he 'had consulted the army commanders and assessed that the cancellation of the contract would delay the acquisition process by 18 months to two years, but that was an acceptable risk'. He also said that the additional secretary, defence, N.N. Vohra, had told him about the meeting of 4 July 1987 when Rajiv Gandhi got wild with him about the latter madopting a threatening approach to try and make Bofors reveal the names. Sundarji believed that Arun Singh's resignation was connected with all this. He said, 'I think he went and had a very big dust-up with the Prime Minister. He was torn between his loyalty to the man and what he felt was right.' Naresh Chandra, defence secretary, met me and explained that Bofors had offered to supply ammunition and spare parts at a discount or concessional rate amounting to a total of Rs 64 crore. I said they were most welcome to make the offer but it should be made clear to them that we would reserve our right to find out the ultimate recipients of the commissions. The matter did not progress further.

Harsh said...

Sir, can the killing of siraj raisani be counted as revenge for killing of shujaat bukhari?
When the fireworks will start at LOC?

rad said...

hi prasun
what was the cause of the new sukhoi crash, bo the pilots were test pilots and error on their part would be negligible as they test new sukhois as a routine/?

what is the reason that the a-330 awacs is being delayed - money?

the army seems to placing orders for t-90 left and right , what is the justification for them to do that when the arjun beats a t-90 in nearly all parameters apart form weight ?

i done understand that they still do not include active protection systems? in the new order?

india is giving the finger to the US and going to buy the s-400 , what is the plan?

Has the US approved the turkish attack copter to the pakis, they seem to be going ahead in spite of uncertainty regarding approval.can erdogan arm twist trump regrading that?

what ace do we have to make the uae behave?

Millard Keyes said...


Super pouvoir militaire de la France le jour de la Bastille - Le Président prend la Salut. Bastille Day super military parade- French military power on display
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eME1y6V-T4

Pratap said...

Prasun da, any comments on recent developments in Pakistan? I thought Sharif was trying to get a deal from PA to save his neck when he made that 26/11 comment, but now it seems he has undergone "Hridhay parivartan" and is sincere about his struggle to establish civilian supremacy and the democratic cause he now claims to represent. What do you think?

Sudipta Pathak said...

http://idrw.org/india-make-equipment-costlier-mod-asks-why/
At-least someone in mod has the brains to read your article. Wish the almighty has given them the commonsense to follow your advise and make things right.

Arun said...

Dear Sir

Pakistan's Economic Meltdown has Begun

Now they would be compelled to approach the IMF in September

Recently Greece has had a very
Painful deal with IMF
Though they are Christians And White people

So US must be planning something special for the conditionalities to be imposed on Pakistan

We can easily conduct more Surgical Strikes including Air Strikes after the Rainy Season

This is the Beat time to humiliate Pakistan

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

https://www.firstpost.com/india/rabinder-singh-spy-who-defected-to-us-is-no-more-double-agent-lived-his-last-years-as-a-remorseful-recluse-4688341.html

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/intel-karmapa-may-not-return-from-us/621196.html

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/isi-blocking-ultras-extradition-says-ib/621186.html

To TECHNOLOGY, PHOTOGRAPHY & TRAVEL: https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/silk-based-bioactive-wound-dressing-and-skin-graft/article24420329.ece?homepage=true

Anonymous said...

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/isi-blocking-ultras-extradition-says-ib/621186.html

What should be India's response to this?

Tushar

SOUBHAGYA said...

Dear Prasun,

Isn't UAE kicked India's ass by handing over the wanted terrorist to Pakistan? Although India cooperated with UAE by handing over the princess by tracking her vessel, in turn got kicked. What's your say? What should be India's reaction now to UAE?

Rajesh Mishra said...

(1) I could not get it anywhere conclusively that in LCA-Mk1 the problem of angle of attack and the problem of Eddy air flow at the tail have been satisfactorily resolved or not. So please reply.

(2) Now who is going to purchase the LCA-Mk1A at Rs 363 Cr apiece. You have raised this and similar questions on many times but now only the MOD is catching the Bull of HAL by horns. With this rate will it not be better to purchase the 110 Rafale in MMRCA-2 and also invest on some more nukes, as it will be more defense assertive and cost effective. Pl reply. With Thanx in advance.

joydeep ghosh said...

Prasun da
till now only aSIn and african ations were in chinese debt trap, but it seems European nations are also follwoing suit

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/chinese-highway-to-nowhere-haunts-montenegro/articleshow/65008074.cms

btw anything on what i asked about HH The Dalai Lama earlier, any truth

thanks

Joydeep Ghosh

Technology, Photograpy and Travel said...

Thanks, Prasun dada ... need to check or read about the research paper and understand if the silkworm mat can be used for long-term say as a case/shell for the mobile devices ... looks like a decent alternative if used for the mobile body which is mostly plastics if this can be biodegradable in say 5 years then ideal to use for mobile devices as they would be generaly dumped after 4 years time

buddha said...

http://idrw.org/uk-unveils-new-6th-generation-fighter-called-tempest/#more-176024
USA Uk France Germany all moving to 6th gen aircraft
And we still can't fix mig 21 plus plus tejas....
Really sry state

buddha said...

https://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/others/tejas-price-cant-come-down/amp_articleshow/65014708.cms
What will be ideal choice amid cash crunch tejas MKIA or rafale or upgraded su30mki

just_curious said...

prasun,

1- Why are the paramilitary forces treated like children of the lesser gods when they too face the same adversaries in the same difficult conditions?
2- What is your takeaway from the Trump-Putin meet?
3- The recent news of UAE double crossing us over a wanted fugutive? How should India make them pay for it
4- since no one country feels its financially feasible to produce next gen jets. will AMCA eventually be co developed with some other country? UK seems to be the latest to join the bandwagon with its own jet.. which ones are likely to succeed & who should most likely India partner
5- India increasingly sounds confident about having found out ways to deal with with US sanctions On Russia & Iran? what's the story behind it
6- What is new with the BEL-Saab Gan aesa Radars? DRDO claims to have already manufactured its labs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Jsu03BxeY
7- IS Russian research on radio photonic radars really as good as it claims to be ?

SUJOY MAJUMDAR said...

Prasun Da,

BDL is saying they have bagged an order to sell light weight torpedoes to a " friendly country". Which country is this ?

http://www.uniindia.com/bdl-bags-export-order-worth-usd-14-33-mn/states/news/1291719.html

Thanks,

Sujoy

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To BUDDHA: LoLz! I'm surprised that you expect the situation to be any better! This is exactly what happens when IMBECILES are at the helm of affairs in any country. Before any country embarks on any such effort, a comprehensive strategy paper is always drawn up. It is imperative. When such strategies are non-existent, then everything else goes haywire. Here is the UK's strategy paper, released yesterday, on the Tempest 5th-gen MRCA:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/725600/CombatAirStrategy_Lowres.pdf

And don't even DREAM about any such document emerging from India, at least over the next decade!

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,

About using semi-automatic (SLR) and multi-mode carbines; I suppose with USA offensive mindset and Indian defensive mindset is the over simplistic difference. With defensive mindset, the powers deciding still think resources are more precious than soldier's life.

I had to google and find out the difference between SLR and carbines.
Thanks, Ganesh