you have on one hand
a) a pool in your backyard (bay of bengal) that is completely dominated by your own navy,
> no foreign navy operates there regularly other than in exercises (bangladesh, burma or thai navy doesn’t matter all that much),
> the shipping vessel routes are easily tracked
> is closer to your target and your main submarine base
> can only be approached from the south and those routes are guarded by your
major bases in A&N islands and mainland’s eastern coast.

and on the other hand you have
b) the arabian sea which
> is south of pakistan
> is considered as legitimate area of interest by US navy, royal navy, french navy, iranian navy, all the gulf countries. of course, half the world’s navy is deployed to that area for tackling pirates, including the PLAN.
> is one of the most active maritime areas in the world in terms of shipping routes
> lies abreast one of the most militarily volatile regions on earth

etc.

and you are asking “Good question, but ‘equally’ if you could deploy from the arabian sea why wouldnt you?”
well, I’ve a similar question ‘if you could have another hole drilled into your head why wouldn’t you want it ?’ it’s natural to want to make things harder for yourself isn’t it ? :rolleyes:
in fact you will probably be cribbing next that the missile can’t reach china’s east coast from southern hemisphere’s atlantic ocean.

you think deployment to these two places are equal and you have the temerity to claim that anything not agreeing with your views is ‘obfuscation’ ? :rolleyes:

wow is all I can say ! such bold parading of ignorance is worthy of respect.

which contractors supplying which items ? random speculation gets us nowhere.

it is arihant.

And, it is referred to as a 4th generation fighter, rather than a 5th generation type fighter.

PLAAF calls 4th gen what ROW calls 5th gen.

so next week we will see the J-XX fly at zhuhai ? or did I misunderstand the comments here ?

I seem to remember the ka-50 had serious reliability issues with its rotors ?

you have answered your own question here, the aircraft based systems are not for striking 6000 miles away (the places at that distance from India are canada, tasmania, mali etc so I don’t quite see the point anyway)
deterrence vis-a-vis china can be maintained with land based BMs and sub based ones, as and when that is available. china is a rational player who has more to lose in a nuclear war, the multitude of nuclear situations are unlikely wrt china. of course, the tactical nuke option against china can be shouldered by the aircrafts.
please keep in mind that NFU policy does not mean India will never use nukes, if the NCA has reason to believe that a nuclear strike on Indian forces is likely they are quite likely to opt for a pre-emptive strike. the tactical strike option might be used as a retaliation against a similar strike against Indian forces without escalating to wiping out each other’s cities.

most of pakistan is however within a few hundred km of India’s borders, many important ones are within 50-60 km. counter force is a very real need for India in case pakistan’s army goes over completely to the extremist’s side, which is a fear expressed every other day by someone around the world.

quadbike, how about I’ll try and get myself banned ? 😀

matt, as has been pointed out to you aircraft delivery is much more flexible in terms of deployment and also accurate. for a power that keeps nukes for show a token deployment might be enough, especially when there’s no one to deter in the first place. for one that prepares to deal with very complex scenarios the one size fits all doctrine isn’t very appealing.