Defense

An avalanche hit the Siachen Glacier in Ladakh on Monday, trapping eight soldiers of the Indian Army under the snow. The incident took place at 3 pm. The Indian Army is conducting a massive search and rescue operation since then to locate and rescue the trapped soldiers. The Army personnel hit by the avalanche were part of a patrolling party consisting of eight persons and were in the northern glacier when the incident happened. The soldiers continue to be trapped at Northern Siachen Glacier.

The maiden bilateral maritime exercise between the Qatari Amiri Naval Forces (QANF) and Indian Navy started yesterday. Named Za’ir-Al-Bahr (Roar of the sea), the five-day exercise is carried out in order to enhance co-operation between the two forces. The exercise will be attended by Indian Navy Guided Missile Stealth Frigate INS Trikand and Patrol Aircraft P8-I that arrived at Hamad Port yesterday and Anti-Ship Missile equipped Barran Class Fast Attack Craft along with Rafale multi-task fighter aircraft.

Sources confirm that talks are on to acquire 10 “Heron TP” version of the heron family. The Ministry of Defence had okayed the proposal in May last year. “We are working to finalise the deal that is estimated to be $400 million,” sources said. This could be the first drone in the Indian arsenal to have a missile-strike ability hence can be used to hit at targets without sending a man on the mission on board a fighter jet. The armed forces had proposed buying armed drones in 2012.

According to a defence press release, this is for the first time after the inauguration of Naval Taxi Link connecting NAE Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) in August this year that a defence mission has been undertaken. The aircraft successfully completed an operational turn round at NAE, Cochin, as part of the mission.

“The number is going to blow up from whatever we have today at 1,400, it will rise to 2,000 soon,” he said at a program here. The induction of medium transport aircraft, Airbus C295, in the IAF will begin soon, he said adding that the force has already inducted Rafale fighter jets from Dassault Aviation of France.

A licence agreement was exchanged between GSL and DRDO for transfer of technology in composite technology, especially resin film infusion technology (RFIT) and vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM). Nagpal also said that GSL has opened an office at Karwar with the aim of bagging contracts for repairs and mid-life upgrades for warships.

“A MiG-29K twin-seater aircraft, on a routine training sortie, encountered a flock of birds after taking off from INS Hansa Air Base at Dabolim Goa at about noon on 16 Nov 2019,” a navy statement released shortly after the incident said. The pilots observed that the left engine had flamed out and the right one had caught fire and an inability to save the aircraft on account of low height caused them to ditch the plane and bail out.

The keel-laying ceremony of two 50-tonne bollard pull tugs, ‘Balram’ and ‘Veeran’ out of a series of four, being built by Hindustan Shipyard Limited, Visakhapatnam for the Indian Navy, was conducted on November 15, a HSL press release said on Friday.

Agni-II has the capability to carry a nuclear warhead weighing up to one tonne. The 20 meters long missile has been designed and developed by the Advanced Systems Laboratory, a unit of the DRDO, in Hyderabad. The missile was part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP) and has appropriate on-board thrusters fitted on the second stage of the missile.

India has told the Russians to review the level of indigenisation to take the local content of the Ka-226Ts to be manufactured at Bengaluru-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to beyond the existing figure that stands at around 60%, the first official said.