Defense

Air Marshal Choudhury is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy and was commissioned into the fighter stream of the India Air Force on 22nd December 1983. The Air Marshal also an alumnus of the Royal College of Defence Studies, UK, Post Graduate in Strategy and International Security from King’s College London and also holds an M.Phil degree in Defence and Strategic Studies.

Amid reports of Indian Air Force lacking ‘operational-data link and jets going incommunicado’ during the Pakistan Air Force retaliation on February 27, former Air Chief BS Dhanoa on Sunday said Indian Air Force is a network enabled force and it has joint air defence centre. Dhanoa said any assumption that IAF lacks communication and airborne Sukhoi-30s could not establish communication with bases during retaliatory measures against Pakistan post-Balakot is wrong.

Indian Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik told parliament on 11 December that the Israeli-made, man-portable, fourth-generation system, which can engage targets in ‘fire-and-forget’ and ‘fire-observe-and-update’ modes, will “enhance operational flexibility and crew survivability”.

In a distinguished military career spanning almost four decades, he has held key appointments in active Counter Insurgency environments, both in the North East and in Jammu and Kashmir and was a part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka during Operation PAWAN.

The ‘landmark’ decision was inked during the fourth India-Nepal coordination meeting held between Indian border guarding force SSB and its Nepalese counterpart APF at Pokhara, Nepal during November 20-22. The Indian side was led by SSB Director General (DG) Kumar Rajesh Chandra and the Armed Police Force (APF) of Nepal team was headed by its Inspector General Shailendra Khanal.

As of now, we have identified 500 acres of land near Sulur and Karanampettai. We plan to conduct talks with the landowners to acquire the land from them to set up industrial units in the defence corridor. We are also trying to identify 500 more acres of land in the same locality,” a senior official from SIPCOT said.

The Ministry sources said, “Some political parties (names withheld considering the gravity of the case) ignited the violent acts at various places, letting opportunities to sleeper cells of extremist and militant Islamic fundamentalist organisations – Popular Front of India (PFI) and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)”.

On December 16, 2019, for the first time, Vijay Divas (Victory Day) will be celebrated at the Rashtriya Samar Smaarak, India’s National War Memorial. On February 25, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Rashtriya Samar Smaarak, dedicated to every soldier martyred while fighting for India in 72 years of Independence. The third-names of 25,942 fatal battle casualties have been inscribed on 16 walls of the memorial.

“RSBVL has acquired equity shares of Asteria Aerospace for a cash consideration of Rs 23,12,49,584. The said investment represents 51.78 per cent holding in the equity share capital of Asteria,” Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said in a BSE filing. Asteria, incorporated in India in June 2011, is a full-stack drone technology company with in-house drone manufacturing capabilities, and also offers software solutions to provide actionable insights from aerial data, intending to deliver “drone-as-a-service” digital platform.

The 1971 war was a military conflict between India and Pakistan. It began with preemptive airstrikes on 11 Indian Air Force stations by Pakistan on 3 December 1971 due to erstwhile East Pakistan. As a result, the Indian Army agreed to support the Bengali nationalist groups in the Bangladesh independence struggle in East Pakistan.