Cavalier India Defence Training Academy

          Wani (38) had been shot and injured during an anti-terror operation at Batagund village in Shopian           Wani was a terrorist initially and became a counter-insurgent after he realised the futility of violence, a senior Army officer said           He was a highly decorated soldier and was awarded the Sena Medal for gallantry in August 2007 Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani, the soldier slain in a counter-terrorist operation in Shopian district on Sunday in which six terrorists were killed, was once an ikhwan (a terrorist who surrenders and becomes involved in counter-insurgency operations) before joining the Army. He was a highly decorated soldier and was awarded the Sena Medal for gallantry in August 2007 and a bar to the Sena Medal in August this year. He belonged to Cheki Ashmuji village in Kulgam tehsil, in the terror-infested south Kashmir district of Kulgam. Wani is survived by his wife and tw...

The process to select 110 fighters for the Indian Air Force (IAF) will draw upon the field evaluation results of the now-cancelled Medium Muti-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) purchase deal to shorten and hasten the process, senior officials in the ministry of defence who aren’t authorised to speak to the media said. In 2015, the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre scrapped the US$ 20 billion (approx INR 140 billion) MMRCA project. Instead, it opted to buy 36 Rafale aircraft from French defence manufacturing giant Dassault through a government-to-government contract with France. The Rs 58,000 crore deal has triggered a major political controversy, with the Opposition alleging corruption and wrongdoing in the purchase of the aircraft which the government has vehemently denied. Strapped with an ageing and depleting fighter fleet, IAF had  floated a Request for Information (RFI) – a global tender – to buy 110 fighters. Of the 110 jets, around 85% will...

India wants to buy 24 multi-role MH-60 ‘Romeo’ anti-submarine helicopters from the United States at an estimated cost of $2 billion. Quoting defence industry sources, a PTI report Saturday said the government-to-government deal is expected to be finalised in a few months. This follows a letter from India to the US for an “urgent requirement” of the 24 helicopters for the Indian Navy. In August, the Defence Acquisition Council had approved the procurement of these helicopters, as well as 111 utility helicopters. Here’s all you need to know about the ‘Romeo’ helicopters, and why India needs them: What are ‘Romeo’ helicopters? The MH-60 ‘Romeo’ Seahawk helicopters are advanced naval machines equipped with sophisticated combat systems – sensors, missiles and torpedoes – to track and hunt enemy boats. According to Lockheed Martin, the top American manufacturer of the MH-60 choppers, they are deployed by the US Navy as its primary anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface weapons system for op...

All the focus has been on the first deterrence patrol by INS Arihant, India’s nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi also made an interesting assertion that India’s nuclear weapons are a pillar of global peace and stability. This is significant as it indicates that India, a reluctant nuclear power, was first forced to weaponise its nuclear capability because of the security threats it faced from its nuclear-powered neighbours; and now sees its nuclear weapons as an important element in global strategic stability. Modi tweeted, “India’s nuclear triad will be an important pillar of global peace and stability.” “Our nuclear programme must be seen with regard to India’s efforts to further world peace and stability.” India developed nuclear weapons to deter the use of such weapons against us. The draft nuclear doctrine released by the National Security Advisory Board in 1999 stated the objective of India’s nuclear weapons: “In the absence of global nuc...

In a long overdue move, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has issued a series of orders between June and September 2018, extending the purchase preference policy notified by the government in June last year to the local suppliers of 109 items. These items range from air pumps and ventilation fans to design, manufacturing, supply, erection and commissioning of capital equipment like rolling mills and furnaces. The term local supplier refers to a supplier of goods or a service provider whose product or service meets the minimum local content requirement laid down by the procuring agency. In the case of the aforesaid 109 items the minimum local content requirement is specified in respect of each item separately in the MoD notifications. It ranges from 10% in respect of some components of missile systems like Akash, Invar and Konkurs to 70% in respect of Helo Safety nets. The government policy, which has now been extended to the aforesaid 109 items, is not applicable to procurements up to Rs 5...

Most of Afghanistan is currently experiencing a 60 percent drop in the rain and snowfall needed for food production. The rapid expansion of Kabul’s population, extreme drought conditions across the country, and the specter of climate change have exacerbated the need for new water infrastructure. But building it is politically complicated; the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region is defined by its complex maze of transboundary rivers and there is no legal framework in place to avoid major conflict between the nations. It’s no surprise, then, that in the Chahar Asiab district of Kabul, on a tributary of the Kabul River, the Maidan, work is scheduled to begin soon on the Shahtoot Dam. The dam will hold 146 million cubic meters of potable water for 2 million Kabul residents and irrigate 4,000 hectares of land. It will also provide drinking water for a new city on the outskirts of Kabul called Deh Sabz. Afghanistan is finally, after decades of devastating wars, in a position to begin to devel...

India will seek to kickstart its projects in the Maldives during PM Modi’s daylong visit to Male on November 17 to attend Ibu Solih’s swearing-in ceremony. The projects, including in the defence sector, were stalled under the regime of outgoing President Abdulla Yameen.  Pro-China Yameen had stalled a number of Indian projects, including a training academy for the Maldivian armed forces and demarcation of an exclusive economic zone, people familiar with the Indo-Maldives affairs indicated to ET. He had also refused to extend visas for Indian professionals and implement initiatives by India’s private sector companies, they said.  Solih, who will be sworn in as the President on November 17, has signalled to bring back ‘India First’ to Maldives’ foreign policy and deblock stalled projects, said one of the people. There are indications that the new government will safeguard India’s security interests in the region, including disallowing any Chinese military base in the archipelago...

The Sheikh Hasina government has launched a massive crackdown on terrorist groups allegedly backed by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), ahead of the parliamentary election in Bangladesh scheduled for December 23.  Police has held employees of a non-governmental organisation (NGO) linked to a terrorist group and initiated action against senior executives of an insurance firm alleged to have been funded by Pakistan, busted terrorist hideouts and initiated probe against a renegade army officer for targeting secular bloggers.  In the unrelenting drive against terrorist groups and their supporters in Bangladesh since the Holey Artisan cafe attack in 2016, more than 100 terrorists have been killed and over 1,500 arrested across the country, Bangladesh government officials told ET.  Eight employees of the NGO Small Kindness Bangladesh linked to banned outfit Ansar-al-Islam have been arrested by police in Bangladesh on charges of terror financing....

India’s announcement of a maritime nuclear strike capability Monday comes in the midst of increasing submarine activity in its neighbourhood. The INS Arihant, nuclear-powered and able to launch nuclear missiles, has just returned from its first deterrence patrol — a Cold War-era practice where nuclear-armed submarines are deployed in waters from where they can fire on the adversary if attacked. Since the Chinese deployment of a nuclear submarine in 2013 for so-called ‘anti-piracy missions’ off the east coast of Africa, there has been a firming of belief in New Delhi that development of the ‘nuclear triad’ — a stated policy for more than 30 years — must be treated with urgency. Like India, China also professes a ‘no first strike’ policy in its nuclear doctrine. It believes that its maritime capability to launch nuclear weapons complements its variants of land-based road and rail-launched strategic missiles. Chinese and Pakistani capability :: Despite Monday’s announcement, Indian naval ...