ante_climaxWhich AESA ? The one from Thales or from Selex ? I doubt that the gripen NG is anywhere as close to the rafale F3+ as regarding development. The aircraft exist in the form of a unique demonstrator which is far to be representative of an operational aircraft what about all the hardware dev. and integration ? It has taken around decade to dev. the SH, rafale, Typhoon, F35 systems and you would like tyhe gripen NG to be already nearly operational ? 2013 is a minimum to field an operational gripen NG. The dev. of the F3+ started in 2007 even earlier if you take into account that the rafale flew with an AESA radar in 2003 for the first time and that it beneficiates from an ESA architecture since the beginning.
The one from Selex. The Gripen field trials will only start next year. The MRCA decision will only be taken by about late 2010 or early 2011 and that means the first jet has to be delivered by 2014 in all probablity so Gripen NG is well on scheduule for that. When will Brazil need its fighters ?
ante_climaxOur politicians should be fighter pilots
Shiv Aroor
In March 2006, two Indian Air Force ace pilots, Wing Commander Dheeraj Bhatia and Squadron Leader Shailendra Singh, did something that could truly be called a supreme sacrifice. With their doomed Kiran jet aircraft plummeting out of the sky towards a populated area, they had a choice. They could either eject, save their own lives, and watch in horror as their doomed jet smashed into a village. Or they could stay with the jet, squeeze out the last ounces of power from its dead engine, and swerve it away to an open area without people on the ground.
The two pilots did not even have to check with each other about what the other wanted to do. They both knew it instinctively. The aircraft went down in an open field a few hundred meters from a village. Neither pilot even thought of ejecting. Their only objective was to cause as little damage on the ground as possible. In peacetime, I cannot think of two braver pilots than Dicky and Shail as they were called. They were both in their early thirties.
Nine months after the crash, I received a phone-call from Allahabad. It was Shailendra’s wife, Shveta, a courageous lady who accepted her husband’s fate with consummate grace even though the government had the temerity to tell Parliament that the accident had been caused by a pilot error. Shveta told me that she had already discovered the best possible tribute to her husband’s memory. Her son Shashwat, she told me, had now wanted to be a pilot. And she said she was going to do everything in her power to ensure that the boy got the opportunity to live his dream. Imagine, for a moment, the bravery of a lady who has just lost her husband to a jet crash, fully supporting her son’s desire to be a pilot. My hand was shaking as I hung up the phone.
Over the last three years, to my great regret, I haven’t managed to keep in touch with Shveta Singh. And I thought of her especially today, because my colleague Danish Siddiqui did a damning special report on Headlines Today about the woeful lack of trainer aircraft and equipment for those who chose to fly for the air force. A timely report that exposed the criminal dereliction that has led to India routinely putting its pilots into the air without a full routine of three-stage training, and in aircraft that belong in museums, not on tarmacs.
Shailendra Singh and Dicky Bhatia were not rookies from any stretch of imagination. Both had about 2,500 hours of flying in fast fighter jets before they were hand-picked to fly for the stupendously talented Suryakiran aerobatics team. So if veteran fighter jocks like these two guys had trouble in the air, imagine what it could be like for pilot cadets who are drilled through training without adequate support or flying infrastructure. It’s a nightmare scenario, and don’t think the air force doesn’t know it. Everything about India’s efforts to establish proficient training infrastructure in the country smacks of government apathy, criminal myopia, and bureaucratic skullduggery.
Consider the infamous acquisition of India’s Hawk advanced jet trainers from the UK. The purchase took 18 years – yes, eighteen years – to formalize. But now that the jets are in service with the IAF, the government will begin another tender process to buy more such jets. Why? Because the government is not satisfied with the overall service that the Hawk’s maker has provided. So then, another aircraft over another eighteen years? Its unthinkable, but like almost everything else in this country’s defence procurement history, it is not impossible.
The Indian HJT-36, a stage-II trainer is still in development, and has found renown for making both its prototypes smash into asphalt on two separate occasions. Nobody knows when they’ll see the jet in service, even though, by all accounts, it will be a valuable asset once commissioned.
With the HPT-32 primary trainer aircraft fleet finally grounded (a lot of folks in the force believe it should have been phased out at least a decade ago) the government will now put billions of public money into buying foreign-built primary trainers – a kick in the teeth of indigenous aeronautical abilities. The fine matrix of short-term gain has, in the bargain, compelled Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) to throw its hat into the ring with a promise to deliver a new trainer, the HTT-40, in six years. What makes the blood seriously boil is that it takes a series of quick succession deaths for a fleet to be isolated and grounded. And it takes a series of quick crashes to make the government realize that it needs to start thinking of procuring new airplanes. Forward planning? What’s that!
Even if you put corruption aside, at the best of times there is still a pathological bureaucratic aloofness to the air force’s stated requirements. The men and women at Vayu Bhawan toil endlessly on qualitative requirements, only to be told, endlessly, that these requirements can wait. The fact that the Chief of Air Staff constantly mentions his satisfaction government support is protocol, not fact.
In a fast fighter jet, a decision taken a second late could make all the difference between beautiful life and rapid death. If only more of our politicians and bureaucrats were fighter pilots.
ante_climaxWhen does school start?
Anyways, i’ll ignore the rest of the rather silly rant and address the above.
I think you’ll find that events had kicked off in Yugoslavia sometime well before ’95 – ’99; various indigenous elements that were destroying each other lead to an eventual NATO intervention for humanitarian reasons.
The effectiveness of otherwise of that intervention may be another topic for discussion; but to claim that NATO acted first is so biased that it exposes your evident lack of knowledge and understanding of events, alternatively it exposes you as somebody who has already formed opinions that are not influenced by facts.
Either way you are making yourself look silly.
Hugs
Internal matter of a country. Ethnic violence holocaust etc. People killing each other within a country. NATO intervened because the Yugoslav forces were much weaker than what it had and a divided Yugoslavia served their future purposes more. This is the same reason why no one invades African sh*tholes. And when the country which has a crisis is powerful (like Russia in Chechnya) NATO pisses in its pants.
All in all NATO acted first in the internal dispute of a sovereign state and broke it up into pieces. Things like this make your Irans and North Korea’s go the nuclear path thinking if we had a Nuke these b*stards won’t be having a go at us easily.
I am not against war but it pisses me off when people try to justify invasions rather than stating out the obvious facts behind it. 😉
ante_climaxif RC is to believed one sucessful test of data
This has been the case all along so why all the fuzz at the moment ?
It cannot be downplayed , but India have been there and done that
We have much more to lose now than we had then,
ante_climaxwhat their counterparts in the more advanced countries cannot, namely, configure the complex hydrogen bomb based solely on simulation, not sustained and rigorous explosive testing. It is another matter that India’s supposed simulation prowess is suspect considering that simulation requires extensive test data to write the software and computing
speeds in thousands of trillions of operations per second to replicate the variables of a fusion reaction — neither of which the country possesses.
This is not true. The countries who tested or ran simulation tests had to do it with slower computers, I meant the super computers of that time are possibly not even as power full as your cell phone let alone your laptop !.
So the level of simulations they did during their testing can easily be achieved by Indian scientists today by even using commercial systems.
what is so special about thermonuclear weaponry? For one thing, the hydrogen bomb can inspire dread and is truly ‘frightening’ — the essence of deterrence as mind game and something Herman Kahn, the pioneering theorist of deterrence, said was the prime requisite. And, most importantly, the H-bomb is four times more destructive than a fission weapon and costs only a third as much. With limited resources and fissile material stockpile, India will be strategically better off with a mainly thermonuclear arsenal, each warhead providing enormously bigger bang for the buck.
But what about the cost of testing, the economic impact of sanctions on our military programs etc cannot be downplayed. Like I said we must test but now is not the time for doing it, and by putting the government in a state of bother along with the main opposition there is now more chance of India signing the CTBT (under Obama pressure) than that of further tests. At the moment the government is bidding for its time and we must not put it under un-necessary pressure.
While contemplating the destructive power of an H-bomb the writer is ignoring that to wreck casualities on a city like Beijing a TN device is not necessary as he says. His so called well-defended targets can easily be penetrated using Ballistic missiles with MIRVS. Becuase our doctrine is based on no first use the TN weapons are of no big importance. It is nice to have one for the said reasons like lesser fisisle material needed and ease of maintenance but its not worth all the bother going through the un-necessary hassle to attain one. Not at this stage.
We must be concentrating more on delivery systems which are indestructable. At the moment all of our Nuclear Arsenal is based on land, so whether we have an H bomb or not it is succepatble to a large first strike. We must accelrate development of ICBMs with MIRVs and SLBMs and Nuclear submarines.
I do not think we will see another Indian nuclear test for atleast another 2-3 decades. Opportonities will present themselves in the future and we should test when they come.
ante_climaxDoes it require big redisgn ? The Lockheed guys put one in pretty easily in an F 16 for the UAE. Then again UAE paid for it.
ante_climax“Since the TN weapon test was not apparently not a success, you should never test it again.”
May be the logic is thinking that if the first one is not successful the second one may not be a success either and the diplomatic and economic cost might be too high to pay.
ante_climaxGovernment rubbishes claims that Pohkhran-II was failure
By Arvind Padmanabhan
On Board Air India One, Sep 23 (IANS) The government has rubbished the claim by a retired senior scientist that the nuclear tests India conducted 11 years ago were a failure and questioned the timing of his statement.
“He is a perennial doubter. Why has he waited for five years of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government to make the claim?” a top government official said referring to the claim by the former scientist with a state-run agency.
“Out of eight different tests, one may not have yielded the same set of results that we may have talked about. But the rest of the seven have been a success,” the official said on condition of anonymity, during an informal interaction with journalists accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on way to Pittsburgh, US, for the G20 Summit.
The comments by the official were in response to the claim by K. Santhanam, a retired scientist of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), that the nuclear tests conducted by India in 1998 were not a success.
The tests were conducted May 11, 2008 at Pokhran in Rajasthan during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, following which India had to face economic sanctions.
The government seems sure that India has TN capability. May be we will only weaponise our TN device when longer range missiles are available.
ante_climaxPerils of minimal deterrence
Bharat Karnad
India is lucky that in the decade since the 1998 tests when the Indian government trumpeted the country as a ‘nuclear weapon state’ boasting of thermonuclear armaments in its inventory, no country called its bluff. In the context of deterrence as a high-powered game of poker, luck is a statistical incidence for a player with a weak suite. It will eventually run out.
The coordinator of the 1998 series of nuclear tests K Santhanam has authoritatively shown up the Indian government’s thermonuclear claims as pretension torpedoing, in the process, the longstanding fiction of India’s mastery over the science of fusion weapons purveyed by R Chidambaram, adviser to the prime minister on science and technology and, formerly, chairman, Atomic Energy Commission. By referring, moreover, to the ‘hard data’ regarding the tests Santhanam says he has, the other shoe is yet to drop. Chidambaram & Co must be sweating bricks — the reason why they have been silent, even as the Manmohan Singh regime’s urge to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and close the testing option altogether lies buried. Instead of doing the right thing and having a committee of eminent physicists, including stalwarts from the retired nuclear community, examine the test data and the design details of the hydrogen device, national security adviser M K Narayanan’s talk of a BARC group having already done this job and — surprise, surprise — pronounced the fusion test a success, has only stoked the disbelief freighted with anxiety.
Most significantly, Santhanam disclosed that none of the high yield thermonuclear weapon designs in the 100-kiloton to 300-kiloton range that Chidambaram had repeatedly assured the government and the military had been realised have, in fact, been weaponised. This is a devastating denouement to a story that has the makings of a gigantic fraud perpetrated on the country, a fraud based on a scientific conceit of Chidambaram’s that Indian nuclear weaponeers are able to do what their counterparts in the more advanced countries cannot, namely, configure the complex hydrogen bomb based solely on simulation, not sustained and rigorous explosive testing. It is another matter that India’s supposed simulation prowess is suspect considering that simulation requires extensive test data to write the software and computing
speeds in thousands of trillions of operations per second to replicate the variables of a fusion reaction — neither of which the country possesses. Moreover, absent tests, facilities for large scale inertial confinement fusion and for dual axis radiographic hydro testing to enhance the yield by, say, improving the system
for injecting tritium gas in the boosted fission trigger in an H-bomb, are unavailable in the country.But, what is so special about thermonuclear weaponry? For one thing, the hydrogen bomb can inspire dread and is truly ‘frightening’ — the essence of deterrence as mind game and something Herman Kahn, the pioneering theorist of deterrence, said was the prime requisite. And, most importantly, the H-bomb is four times more destructive than a fission weapon and costs only a third as much. With limited resources and fissile material stockpile, India will be strategically better off with a mainly thermonuclear arsenal, each warhead providing enormously bigger bang for the buck.
Supporters of the government’s ‘no more testing’ line, incidentally, are also, without exception, adherents of ‘minimal’ deterrence. Acknowledging that India’s thermonuclear cupboard is virtually bare, these worthies now argue that: (1) weapons capable of 150-300 KT, leave alone megaton, yields are not needed because 60-80 KT fission weapons are adequate; (2) instead of one thermonuclear missile on target, India can fire three missiles, each with a 15-25 KT warhead and, in a supportive hypothesis, (3) delivery accuracy is more important than weapon yield.
An Indian arsenal featuring only 20 KT weapons will do for Pakistan but is guaranteed to fail against China. Besides, India does not have 60-80 KT fission weapons. If these are to be acquired, it will mean scaling up the only proven weapon in the armoury — the 20 KT variety. But scaled up fission bombs/warheads will still need to be tested. If testing is deemed politically infeasible for fission weapons as for fusion weapons, then a big question mark will continue to hang around the Indian deterrent.
The fundamental problem with triggering a salvo of missiles with small yield warheads in the place of thermonuclear missiles is that it is inherently illogical to make the effort of investing in and obtaining 5,000 km Agni intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and, in the future, an 12,000 km intercontinental range ballistic missiles or even long range cruise missiles, and then arm these with puny warheads. It skews the cost-benefit calculus. The minimalists think otherwise given their simplistic take on deterrence, which is high risk-acceptant. Costs may be irrelevant once a nuclear war breaks out, but isn’t the purpose of a nuclear deterrent to prevent nuclear war credibly but also as economically as possible? Secondly, there will be that many more fission weapon-armed missiles to secure and keep safe on the ground. Thirdly, against well-defended value targets, such as Beijing, several missiles will need to be fired to penetrate missile defences and to overcome attrition in flight and inaccurate terminal guidance.
Finally, just the threat of incoming Chinese Dongfeng-21 IRBMs carrying warheads in the 1-3.3 megaton range would so psychologically cripple Indian political leaders with only 20 KT firecrackers to bank on, they will likely throw in the towel.
The Armed Services have been shaken up by Santhanam’s outing the weapons programme as fraudulent and the thermonuclear deterrent as hollow. It will be reasonable for them to demand that nuclear weapons principally meet rigorous military performance standards and not, as happens at present, perform mostly on paper or on computer screens — the sort of thing that apparently satisfies the scientists who are not in the firing loop, retired bureaucrats and policemen (as NSA and what not) who offer strategic counsel such as is on display but are safely out of harm’s way, and political leaders making crucial nuclear weapons-use decisions. The pity is that while the military is starting to get a grip on the situation, the retired civil servant-types and politicians, who understand little about nuclear weapons and even less about deterrence dynamics, are predisposed to make the wrong strategic choices because they accept the misleading, short term-oriented, West-pleasing, advice offered by promoters of minimal deterrence.
Another Hawk !
It skews the cost-benefit calculus. The minimalists think otherwise given their simplistic take on deterrence, which is high risk-acceptant. Costs may be irrelevant once a nuclear war breaks out, but isn’t the purpose of a nuclear deterrent to prevent nuclear war credibly but also as economically as possible?
This Makes me laugh because he doesn’t even think about the financial costs of sanctions and testing. Also about Well defended targets he seems to forget about our Missile Program and planned MIRVs a few missiles with MIRVs will be hard to defend against.
ante_climaxIndia must turn away from the bomb
India’s hawks want to start a series of nuclear tests that could isolate the nation and spark an arms race
Randeep Ramesh
There’s no stranger figure on Indian television news at the moment than retired atomic scientist K Santhanam. One of the driving forces behind the country’s weapons nuclear programme, Santhanam has gone rogue in the past few weeks, denouncing the timidity of Indian government’s pursuit of the most powerful weapons ever devised.
Santhanam wants the country to stop worrying and love the bomb. According to the scientist, India’s nuclear tests conducted more than a decade ago were a dud. The country now stands “naked” before China – unable to deter the People’s Liberation Army.
The only solution, says Santhanam, is to defy world opinion and explode a massive thermonuclear device – in his words for India “to cross the Rubicon” by dropping its voluntary testing moratorium.
This runs against the grain of current thinking, which envisages a shrinking of nuclear weapons. The old cold war mentality of mutually assured destruction and the idea of deterrence have been replaced with a call for a nuclear weapons-free world.
This shift can be traced back to AQ Khan’s atomic supermarket, run from Pakistan, which spread technologies to hostile regimes – with American indifference. The result is that a host of states from Iran to North Korea stand on the threshold of going nuclear.
More worrying is an assessment that Pakistan’s own nuclear weapons facilities have been attacked three times in two years by extremists. Al-Qaida openly says it wants the bomb to wage war on America.
Nuclear weapons in such hands would make deterrence less effective and more hazardous. Little wonder that one of Barack Obama’s key messages at the UN this week will be about global nuclear disarmament.
The securitists in India have a different agenda. They see nuclear weapons as a route to respect. Santhanam is undoubtedly a hawk, one who has chafed against the restraints India faced since it refused in the 1960s to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty – Delhi said it was a version of nuclear apartheid.
The NPT banned countries, apart from the five security council members, from owning atomic weapons and simultaneously benefiting from civilian trade in such technologies. The result was that India tried to build its nuclear weapons industry from scratch.
India did get the bomb – exploding the Smiling Buddha in 1974 and 15 years later it tested five devices. The uber-nationalists say that India’s home-grown nukes could be geared up for bigger things – citing Pakistan’s expanding nuclear arsenal and China’s vast armoury as reasons to explode bigger devices.
There is an opportunity lurking in the rhetoric gap between Obama’s speeches on disarmament and the implementation of such ideas. That opening, say hawks, could be filled by a series of massive Indian nuclear tests, which would deter Delhi’s enemies and secure its stockpile – while the world frets about AQ Khan, Iran and North Korea.
Bizarre as this might sound, Indian testing could be justified by the president’s soaring idealism. Although Obama wants to Washington to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty, it has yet to be passed by the Senate. As long as the US has not signed the treaty, Delhi’s hawks reason, Washington can denounce Indian nuclear tests but the rest of the world is going to ask why senators have blocked the treaty for years.
For a section of India’s elite, the US’s political gridlock is a boon. They point to China, which tested its arsenal until 1996 before signing up to the NPT and endorsing the CTBT. Why, runs the thinking, shouldn’t India be allowed to do the same?
It’s a dangerous game. India has not signed the NPT or the CTBT. It has been a nuclear rogue state. Yet it was brought in from the cold last year by the international community and permitted to trade in nuclear technology despite not having signed the NPT.
It is the only exception ever made for any state with nuclear weapons – a coup and recognition of its rising global status. France, Russia and the US have signed lucrative deals with India. Canada and Britain want in too. The world signalled that it wanted to turn swords into ploughshares – converting nuclear weapons know-how into nuclear energy know-how.
A series of massive Indian nuclear tests would snatch defeat from the jaws of diplomatic victory. It might provide a short-cut to international status – but it would be one of a pariah. Questions would be raised about India’s pursuit of intercontinental ballistic missiles, its plans for nuclear-powered submarines and its burgeoning space industry. It would rightfully be seen as a renegade act, sparking an arms race in Asia when the world least needed it.
Should India test again, the country would once again be subject to sanctions and be seen as a nation engaged in a needless military build-up while its population languished in poverty. Ever-growing nuclear stockpiles are seen as a threat to the international order and a distraction from economic progress. For India to go nuclear all over again in a bigger, more deadly way would be a sign of weakness not strength.
ante_climaxHe is not a moron. He is a strategic affairs analyst and thus is more qualified than any Nuclear scientist in the matter of deterrence.
Yes there are many instances in history where scientists of a nation pushed for things just to make themselves look good.
The issue mostly is that whether the government has faith in the countries Nuclear Arsenal and signing CTBT is the best way for the government to say it has.
I personally do not want this to happen but all this scaremongering via vis the nuclear arsenal and China may be considered a great opportunity for signing such an agreement. Since the opposition is also in hot waters in this issue the Congress may try to reach a consensus with the BJP and push toward it.
ante_climaxDoes India really need the H-bomb?
The best way to end the debate on India’s nuclear arsenal is to sign the comprehensive test ban treaty
Borderline | W Pal Sidhu
The recent assertion by K. Santhanam, formerly with the Defence Research and Development Organisation and a key figure who coordinated the Shakti series of nuclear tests, that the thermonuclear bomb tested on 11 May 1998 was a fizzle and failed to reach the desired yield has raised questions about the reliability of India’s nuclear arsenal.
It has also renewed the debate on whether it is essential to conduct further nuclear tests or not to ensure India’s thermonuclear weapon will work as expected.
It is the wrong question to ask. The real question is: does India really need a thermonuclear weapon to ensure its credible minimum nuclear deterrent?
Before addressing this question, it is important to understand what a thermo- nuclear weapon is and how it is different from a nuclear weapon. It is equally crucial to understand the factors motivating countries to acquire such weapons.
So, what is a thermo- nuclear bomb? A nuclear bomb, which is triggered by conventional explosives to create a chain reaction from the critical mass of fissile material, derives its explosive power by splitting (fissioning) atoms of the heavy elements uranium (U235) and plutonium (Pu239). That is why a nuclear bomb is known as a fission weapon.
In contrast, a thermonuclear bomb is also called a fusion bomb or a hydrogen bomb because the bomb derives its explosive power from fusing atoms of the light element hydrogen, such as tritium (3H) or deuterium (2H or D). Since fusion can only be achieved at extremely high temperatures of around 10,000 degrees Celsius (such as those found in the sun), hydrogen bombs are triggered by a fission bomb, which is the only source capable of producing these high temperatures on earth. Because of the high temperatures needed for fusion, the hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, is also known as a thermonuclear bomb.
The H-bomb is a two-stage weapon where a fission nuclear bomb serves as the primary detonator, which then compresses and triggers a fusion fuel secondary, leading to a massive explosion. In theory, an H-bomb can produce unlimited destructive power. The biggest bomb tested by the Soviet Union produced 50 megaton of explosive power—nearly 3,000 times more destructive power than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The H-bomb is also the most complex of all nuclear weapons to develop and this is why no country has been able to perfect it in a single shot. It would have been a miracle or a technological fluke if the first ever test of an Indian H-bomb had worked flawlessly.
The challenges of building an H-bomb notwithstanding, there are at least three reasons why countries seek to acquire this deadliest of all nuclear weapons. First, thermonuclear weapons provide more bang for the buck in that the fissile material used to make a fission bomb can be made a hundred or thousand times more lethal by adding a secondary or a second-stage fusion at little extra cost.
This might be particularly appealing to countries that have limited fissile material and feel the need to develop weapons with yield in the megatons. Although this might be attractive to a country such as India that perhaps has limited fissile material for all its strategic nuclear needs, it is a huge gamble to depend on a design that has not worked as expected. It would be far more prudent to use the material in a boosted weapon, which has already been successfully tested in 1998.
Secondly, countries that adhere to a counter-force strategy, which seeks to attack and destroy the nuclear forces and related command and control capabilities of the other side in a decapitating first strike before these forces can be launched, will find the H-bomb attractive. The enormous destructive power of the H-bomb is particularly suitable for destroying the hardened underground nuclear missile silos and command and control centres.
However, for India, which has a declared no-first-use strategy and an implied second-strike, counter-city strategy (which calls for India to absorb the first nuclear strike and then retaliate against the vulnerable cities of the other side), the H-bomb is not particularly useful. Such massive destructive power is not necessary against unprotected cities, which are particularly vulnerable even to fission weapons.
Perhaps this is why the Indian Armed Forces, which have consistently asked for nuclear weapons, have never demanded the H-bomb. The outgoing navy chief and the chairman of the chiefs of staff committee, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, endorsed this when he categorically stated that India had already acquired a credible minimum nuclear deterrent, implying that an H-bomb was not essential for India’s strategic nuclear objectives.The third reason why countries might seek the H-bomb is prestige. In fact, given the complexity of building the H-bomb, the history of this bomb is rife with stories about scientists and countries seeking this weapon to prove that they are as good, if not better, than scientists in other countries or even in their own nuclear establishments.
This debate is likely to remain alive and the reliability of India’s nuclear arsenal will be constantly questioned until the government firmly endorses the credibility of the arsenal by ruling out any further tests once and for all.The best way for the Manmohan Singh government to end this debate and shut off the possibilities of future tests is to sign and ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty. Such a move would be even more courageous than signing the Indo-US nuclear deal or, indeed, carrying out more tests for a weapon that India does not really need. Will Singh show this courage of conviction?
W. Pal Sidhu is vice-president of programmes at the EastWest Institute, New York. His PhD thesis from Cambridge University was on The Development of India’s Nuclear Doctrine Since 1980. He writes on strategic affairs every fortnight.
http://www.livemint.com/2009/09/08215934/Does-India-really-need-the-Hb.html
The people who are protesting about the credibility of the test may force the government to sign the C.T.B.T
ante_climaxIAF pilots ground stage-I trainer HPT 32
The Indian Air Force (IAF) seems to be in a deep trouble as the new batch of trainee pilots reaches the Air Force Academy early next month. The entire HPT 32 fleet has been grounded after a series of crashes and now there is no stage-I trainer aircraft available.
The problem is not just limited to the current batch but even the next batch will be affected.
A Headlines Today investigation has found that the IAF pilots have been reluctant to fly these stage-I trainers – rechristened as the Flying Coffin. Recurring engine failure of the Hindustan Piston Trainer (HPT) 32 was the reason for grounding of the fleet.
In just two weeks, 140 cadets will reach the Air Force Academy in Hyderabad for training but there is no trainer aircraft available.
IAF sources said they have reported more than 100 engine failures in the recent months. The pilots, including instructors, have been under tremendous pressure from their families not to fly these aircraft. And now, the entire fleet has been grounded.
On July 31, 2009, an HPT-32 stage-I trainer crashed at Medak killing both the pilots, Squadron Leader Nitin Jain and Wing Commander Chaturvedi. In May 2008 a woman cadet of the IAF academy was killed in a crash.
The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) built trainer – HPT 32 – first flew in 1977.
The air force is now being forced to make do with great danger to its pilots. It has no choice but to push pilots directly onto stage-II trainer aircraft – Kiran Mark II – which is not only risky but also a violation of the training procedures.
Trainee pilots lose out on 50 hours of stage-I training of basic flying and aptitude skills imparted on HPT 32. Last year, even the CAG had said that the IAF was facing an acute shortage of efficient pilots and blamed faulty training but nothing was done to better the condition.
ante_climaxIAF hero does India proud once more in Everest land
Wing Commander Ramesh Chandra Tripathi (right), Leo Dickinson (centre) and Ralph Mitchell after the landing.KATHMANDU: Doggedness and a devil-may-care attitude enabled Wing Commander Ramesh Chandra Tripathi to live up to the motto of the Indian AirForce – Touch the sky with glory – literally on Tuesday, as along with two Britons, he became the first men to make the highest parachute landing.
The 45-year-old para jump instructor, and British divers Leo Dickinson, 62, and Ralph Mitchell, 24, leapt off a helicopter from 20,000 ft in northern Nepal flanked by the Himalayan ranges to land successfully at Gorak Shep, a sandy plateau at 16,800ft.
“It was the fulfilment of a dream,” said Tripathi, who in 2005 had led the IAF team that ascended Mt Everest. “Now if I die tomorrow, I will die a happy man.”
Like Dickinson, an inveterate adventurer who was also the first man to sail above Mt Everest in a balloon in 1991, Tripathi is an intrepid mountaineer who was awarded the President’s Vayu Sena medal for gallantry in 2006. He is also leading the IAF Seven Summits expedition that flagged off with the Everest ascent in 2005. By 2010, the team plans to conquer the six remaining highest peaks in six more continents.
It was a remarkable feat for Tripathi especially as he had suffered a brain haemorrhage six months ago and his doctors opposed his skydive plan from a height where the dearth of oxygen could cause death. Unlike his peers, who spent about five days in Gorak Shep acclimatising, Tripathi did not have that luxury since he did not have leave. He rushed to Kathmandu on Saturday, left for Lukla, the gateway to the Everest region, the next day and attempted the dive Monday.
“But the weather was bad Monday and strong winds forced the helicopter to turn back,” says Abhishek Pande, coordinator at Himalaya Expeditions that had organised the logistics of the dive. In 2005, the same agency handled the IAF Everest expedition during which Tripathi had expressed his desire to skydive in the Everest region.
It was three years before the trend started in Nepal. Last year when skydiving in the Everest region began, HimEx remembered Tripathi and matched him with the two Britons who wanted to have a stab at it this year. “Wing Commander Tripathi flew to Gorak Shep at 6.30am in the morning,” Pande said. “He dived at around 7.50am after the two others. While he flew from Lukla, he kept on inhaling half a litre of oxygen from the oxygen cylinder per minute to support himself. When he alighted, he took off his mask for half a minute and then put it on again, speaking only after he returned to Lukla.”
When the hype over the feat began Wednesday, Tripathi was already back in New Delhi, going to his office in the morning. For the Dhaula Kuwa resident who hails from Dehra Dun in Uttaranchal, the skydive triumph is especially sweet as it comes after two aborted attempts – one last year and one this summer – to summit Mt Lhotse and Mt Cho Pyu, the fifth and sixth highest peaks in the world respectively.
ante_climaxOver 100 pilots have applied for VRS: IAF chief
GANDHINAGAR: Over 100 pilots of the Indian Air Force (IAF) have applied for voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), Air Chief Marshal P V Naik said
here on Wednesday.“We have very steep pyramid structure (in the Air Force) where there are less avenues of promotions,” Naik said in reply to a question on how many pilots of the Air Force have applied for VRS.
“When one does not get promotions after 24-25 years of service one wants to leave and try alternative avenues. Off hand I can tell that we have over 100 applications for VRS from pilots,” Naik said.
“Since there is a slump in the market outside, there are less applications. Once the slump is over the applications might increase,” he added.
Naik said that the Air Force have setup independent board of officers to assess the VRS application of the pilots.
“The committee scrutinises the applications on case-to-case basis and if the reasons for VRS are justified, which mostly are on compassionate ground for children and parents, the applications are approved,” Naik said.
Naik was on a two-day visit to the South Western Air Command (SWAC) in Gandhinagar to review the Commands’ operational, maintenance and administrative preparedness.
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