Somehow I am curious how this is related to the huge US-India trades (F16/C130/P3c etc). About democracy. What is the difference between the democracy of France and India? I don’t see it.

US-India ties may turn out to be less stable: NIC

Press Trust of India

Washington, January 15, 2005|11:38 IST

The National Intelligence Council (NIC) has expressed that US relations with India may turnout to be ‘less stable’ and New Delhi’s democratic character may make it difficult for Washington to deal with it in future.

A discussion paper that has emerged out of a seminar on Asian Responses to the US held by the NIC, on which all US intelligence agencies were represented, has said that US relations with India may turnout to be less stable and less predictable version of American relations with France.

“Ironically, India’s democratic character may make it difficult for the US to deal with it in the future, partially because of the individuals that may be involved and partially because of structure.”

There are a number of questions that need to be answered in order to understand India’s emerging place in the world.

Military ties with Pakistan very important: China:
[World News]: Beijing, Jan 14 : Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Thursday hoped China-Pakistan military cooperation would grow to meet the two countries’ defence requirements, Online news agency reports.

“Our military cooperation is an important part of our state-to-state relations that helps to promote peace, stability and development in the region,” Wen said during his meeting here with Pakistan’s visiting Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal.

Describing Pakistan and China as sincere and reliable friends, he said his government wished to maintain the momentum of ongoing cooperation in bilateral matters.

Officials described Iqbal’s meeting with Wen as “fruitful”. Iqbal is on a five-day official visit to China at the head of a six-member delegation.

During the meeting Iqbal convyned messages of good wishes from President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and said the Pakistani leadership highly valued its decades-old friendship with China.

Earlier, Iqbal held talks with his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Cao Gangchuan at the headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

During the talks, the two sides noted that bilateral exchanges and cooperation had increased between the armed forces of the two countries along with development of cooperation in other fields.

The Chinese side, Cao said, was willing to make joint efforts with Pakistan to advance army-to-army cooperation.

Indo-Asian News Service

[no F-16s at Aero India 2005 😡

“Interestingly, the F-16 has not lost a single competition for fighter aircraft contracts but it remains to be seen how it fares in India, if at all the U.S. government allows Lockheed Martin to bid for the project.”

http://www.congress.org/congressorg…er_id=118361951

To: Sen. Barbara Boxer

December 13, 2004

The sale of F-16’s to Pakistan strongly undermines our long-term strategic interests. Do we stand for more democracy around the world or coddling another dictatorship? Have we learnt nothing from our support of fundamentalists and dictators in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other places? Ignoring long-term principles for short-term strategic gains is bound to come back to haunt us through blow back. Let us not forget that a similar short-term strategic logic, active US support and dubious actions led to Osama Bin-Laden, Taliban and the nexus between fundamentalists and the ISI of Pakistan.

This is the same Pakistan that does not allow us to talk to Dr. Khan. This is the same Pakistan that claims that the government knew nothing while Khan was using Pakistani military planes to ship nuclear materials abroad. This is the same Pakistan which has one of the worst human rights records.

It is a vacuous argument to say that Pakistan needs F-16’s for its defense. Defense against whom? India? China? Afghanistan? Iran? None of these countries have invaded Pakistan since its creation. India may be cited as an exception but that is only in response to hostilities INITIATED by Pakistan. India has never threatened the integrity of Pakistan. The vice versa is the “life-support” of Pakistan’s. What the fundamentalist fail to do – divide India completely along religious lines – Pakistan wants to do both actively and by proxy. Let us also not forget that Pakistan is a declared theocracy and wants to dismantle India – a country with more Muslims than Pakistan – along religious lines.

The only reason for supply these nuclear-weapon-delivery-capable F-16’s to Pakistan is so Pakistan can act as a counterbalance to India. If that is the game we want to play, then so be it. But let us not fool ourselves that it will do anything other than persuade India to consider our country as an unreliable long-term strategic partner.

Los Angeles , CA

I hope you saw the bombed Mig21 that between those hardened shelters. I have been there and unfortunately without a camera… Super pics.

Pakistan’s search for F-16s not worrying: air chief:
[India News]: New Delhi, Jan 7 : India’s new air chief said Friday that there was no need to worry about Pakistan’s efforts to purchase F-16 fighter aircraft, saying “We have our own plans”.

“It is a constant process, we buy something and they buy something and also the numbers (of aircraft) to be purchased (by Pakistan) are still not formally decided,” Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi said at his maiden press conference after taking over as chief of air staff.

He, however, hastened to add that he was not suggesting that New Delhi should ignore Islamabad’s decision but added that New Delhi had its own plans.

Pakistan had first discussed purchase of high tech planes, especially F-16s, with the US and then approached other countries following Washington’s reluctance.

India had prevailed over Belgium not to sell 30 second-hand nuclear-capable F-16s to Pakistan.

Though the Indian government has officially contended that acquisition of F-16s by Pakistan could adversely affect the balance of air power between the two countries, Tyagi said he did not apprehend any such “imbalance”.

At the same time, Tyagi said, India was negotiating with Russia to acquire fifth generation fighter aircraft. These had already been inducted into the air forces of the US, China and Russia.

He also pointed out that India had received six of the 10 Mirage-2000 fighters from France while four would be delivered later. Talks are also on for acquiring 126 Mirage-2000-5s.

Responding to queries on the safety of MiG-21 aircraft, he said he was happy that the accident rate had come down considerably. Only two crashes were recorded last year compared to 12 in 1999.

“We constantly endeavour to find mistakes and our composite programme to set the mistakes right are slowly showing results. There is no magic key to stop accidents in a day but there is definitely reduction in the accidents,” he said.

The air chief ruled out grounding the MiG-21s, saying there was a process to phase out fighter planes and that would be followed.

He also ruled out closing the airbase in Car Nicobar, which was completely damaged by the tsunami Dec 26, as repairs had been carried out to the runway and the base had become operational.

“About 400 people were saved due to rescue operations launched from the base in the wake of the tsunami disaster,” he pointed out.

Indo-Asian News Service

Maybe the designs abd electronics are not as advanced as in the west but India, china (indirectly Pakistan) are making huge improvements. There are a lot of projects and with opening of the economies and invasion of the markets (most countries cannot afford JSF/F22/AMRAAM/AWACS/KC10/F117 etc) these nations will have a lot of coverage. Certainly on thos forum. Some might see as flames (which was often the case) but we can conclude that these nations are maturing. How many nations are busy with planes these days? Not much.