RC, Can you make the points without flamebaits?

Kaduna, Its not a matter of ‘believing in what we/you want’, someone told me the story has actually been covered first by AFM and from there it came to these news agencies (else what do you think they publishes their reports from?). There are some arrangements for exclusive frequency specturm in BARS between Russia and India for that matter.

Joey, it was more of an obsevation/opinion than conclusion.

K man.

India is rather fortunate to have its military under civilian rule.

Well It has its bad effects as well, the grass is always greener on the other side type thing, How I wish the payscale would go up et al but no, well.

Im by no means saying that this deal is not in India’s interest (though i would question long term indian interests but that’s another debate in its entirety) and that is precisely why GOI is so vehemently pushing for it irrespective of all that BJP/leftist propaganda.

First of all This deal is not a long term deal with termination clause from both side at any time with 1 year approval, secondly yes it is in Indias long term interest which (the interests) will determined by how India will shape up in next decade, Its useless to speculate rest, We are not going to import LWR’s forever but rather plan to get 8~10 LWR’s. Anyways I’d like to know the points on which Indias long term interest can be questioned by this deal and its relevance from you.

Another thing The left is totally out in its own red fantacies and they have been throughout history done what is not in Indias interest, The BJP was shouting a bit previously just for the sake of being opposition while has toned down because they knows it was them who have gone ahead with the deal, and the public wont take them lightly if now they are opposing the deal, all they wants now is a amendment to our Atomic Energy Act which I have explained to you. But you know the usual opposition politics will be always there.

But

The real question is Why is US of A so insistent on pushing this deal through when it goes against their core non-prliferation principles?

I dont really know what defines non-ploriferation for USA (you know what I’m speaking off), but to say this deal goes against US non-ploriferation vis-a-vis India in making it a ploriferator w.r.t. the deal is incorrect.

India has ‘one of’ the strongest non-ploriferation records, now dont show me what non ploriferation idiots claim about all this, most of them bar some points are incorrect and if you go to genuine source pertaining to the same, you’ll get the factual inaccuracies in painting and framing the overall picture.

I’d quote one expert Dr. Chidambaram who is Chief scientific advisor to PM states in a article from here in a interview recently ,

In the U.S. too there are critics.

There, you have people objecting on the basis of proliferation misconceptions. It is time the U.S. realised India is not a ‘proliferation threat.’ In a 2001 paper, I introduced a new parameter — the Stockpile Increase Significance Coefficient (SISC) — defined as a measure of the significance of a unit increase in the number of nuclear weapons a country has, i.e. the significance of x weapons going to x+1. The SISC is obviously maximum when x=0. As x increases for a country like India with a programme based on self-reliance, the coefficient approaches zero as the country ceases to be of interest in the context of nuclear weaponisation. This is when the hurdles to international cooperation likely disappear. That, in my opinion, is the reason why the U.S. came to India with this deal. Obviously this graph would not apply to a country with weapons based on clandestine acquisition.

As for US interest in this deal, there are plenty, first of all they need to balance the trade interest, secondly, Their economy is knowledge based economy and based on creating things and India to them is a huge pool of cheap knowledge and also talented and well educated manpower, This is one of my concern whether this deal will square north block a bit on how they will tackle this brain drain issue without proper policy changes which is happening, because I can see, to have a global share of things in coming decade we need huge manpower for ourselves. Thirdly, US cannot afford to alienate us on Chinas growing importance and sees us a economic counterbalance to that of China, Fourthly, perhaps US wants us to integrate into the way the anglo-saxon world functions before we try to make space for our own and create headeche for them forming a block with China, Fifth the exact opposite of the above, US themselves wants to move a bit far from EU in long term and needs/wants to come close to India.

All these are possibilities and each of them if discussed on can fill pages, and there can be several reasons formulated like that.

Here is a article which looks at what US gains from a different angle of view though some of them like the Fourth point may not be nevessarily correct at all,

http://www.indiaresearch.org/American_Gains.pdf

Gains

The agreement has the following gains for the US:

Firstly it brings India into the mainstream of non-proliferation norms by bringing 65% of the nuclear power reactors under IAEA safeguards. At present only 4 reactors are under safeguards. Previously India had made unilateral commitments to observe the nonproliferation norms. The agreement makes the commitment more formal and bilateral. The agreement permanently removes a large number of reactors from the military program. The letter and spirit of the NPT will remain intact as there is no assistance to the military program and there is no de-jure recognition of India as a Nuclear Weapon State (NWS). No part of the deal contributes to India’s military program. President Bush has acted as a statesman and a visionary to protect US interests 5-15 years from now, rather than score petty political victories in the name of a 1970s-vintage treaty.

Secondly the deal is good for the American economy as the deal enables nuclear energy to meet a substantial portion of India’s demands for energy and reduces price pressures on other energy resources. India plans to generate 20,000 MW electricity from Nuclear sources by 2020– with or without the deal. Expansion of Indian n-program without the deal would have meant more un-safeguarded facilities in the world.

Thirdly US sanctions had ensured that Indian market for hi-tech goods continued to be dominated by Russia, France, UK etc. Now the playing field will be leveled in favor of US companies – who are almost always the first choice for Indian technology importers if it were not for the sanctions. Trade gap is currently $4B. This gap closure would enable creation of 40,000 high paying jobs using the standard measure of 10,000 jobs per $1B trade.

Fourthly, US companies can leverage their presence in India and take advantage of the cost differentials to become cost competitive in the high technology items a like aircraft – both commercial and military, satellite launch services and even satellites. With the deal, n-sector is also open to US/foreign investment of about $35b.

While i totally agree with u that US cant (with or without this deal) stop Indian nuclear weapons programme, i dont believe that India has unlimited natural resources to make unlimited number of bombs.

This is a incorrect statement because the word unlimited is a bit vague in nuclear economics, Normally I dont believe articles written by NPI (non ploriferation idiots) ofcourse the ones I dont , I have solid reason and can be debunked with proper sources, but this expert of the article is fairly accurate in its data representation.

Atoms for War?
U.S.-Indian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and India’s Nuclear Arsenal
By Ashley J. Tellis

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/atomsforwarfinal4.pdf

India’s capacity to produce a huge nuclear arsenal is not affected by prospective U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear cooperation. A few facts underscore this conclusion clearly. India is widely acknowledged to possess reserves of 78,000 metric tons of uranium (MTU). The forthcoming Carnegie study concludes that the total inventory of natural uranium required to sustain all the reactors associated with the current power program (both those operational and those under construction) and the weapons program over the entire notional lifetime of these plants runs into some 14,640-14,790 MTU—or, in other words, requirements that are well within even the most conservative valuations of India’s reasonably assured uranium reserves. If the eight reactors that India has retained outside of safeguards were to allocate 1/4 of their cores for the production of weapons-grade materials—the most realistic possibility for the technical reasons discussed at length in the forthcoming report—the total amount of natural uranium required to run these facilities for the remaining duration of their notional lives would be somewhere between 19,965-29,124 MTU. If this total is added to the entire natural uranium fuel load required to run India’s two research reactors dedicated to the production of weapons-grade plutonium over their entire life cycle—some 938-1088 MTU—the total amount of natural uranium required by India’s dedicated weapons reactors and all its unsafeguarded PHWRs does not exceed 20,903-30,212 MTU over the remaining lifetime of these facilities. Operating India’s eight unsafeguarded PHWRs in this way would bequeath New Delhi with some 12,135-13,370 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, which is sufficient to produce between 2,023-2,228 nuclear weapons over and above those already existing in the Indian arsenal.

Please read the whole document.

Again,

http://www.indiaresearch.org/Indo-USStrategicDeal.pdf

3. Indian PHWR reactors that are outside IAEA safeguard when operated for efficient power generation would have cumulatively required just 5,842 tonnes. India is estimated to have mined about 9,200 tonnes I of natural-uranium, indicating that about 55% II of the fuel and 8% of its reactor capacity was used in low fuel burn mode, generally associated with operating the reactors in mode optimized to generate weapon grade Plutonium. This corresponds to about 2,400Kg weapon grade Plutonium enough for 800 strategic nuclear weapon.

………….

WEC Survey of Energy Resources 2001 – Uranium Resources : http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/uranium/uranium.asp
II Assuming 650 tonne fuel is set aside for inventory and fuel fabrication WIP. Also factors in reduced plant load factor and fuel for weapon grade Pu
stays in reactor only 15% of the normal time.

Please read the article, Remember this is only through one cycle assumption, There is a possibility of re-cycling i.e. after reprocessing low burn fuel rods to recover WgPu the spent fuel rod is very low on radioactivity and can be easily re-constituted into fuel rod to burn and use the balance ~85% of fissile fuel to reach full burn level. This will only push up higher the Indian WgPu estimate.

I have excluded the FBR’s and some other reactors under construction. The new uranium resource is also excluding some 5 to 10 mines recently in talks to be opened for mining, Remember I have excluded the whole AWHR fuel cycle and other reactor fuel cycles which are in various stages of developement and construction and is going to be completed soon.

So I hope You get the idea that we have enough WgPu for weapons than we will ever need. while it will only increase in future due to the 3 stage programme which is arranged in that way. We are not running short of WgPu, and it is only stated to increase with the Thorium programme.

Indias nuke programme boost is independent of 123 this without even taking into account what the new FBR’s and AWHR’s can do and their respective fuel cycles. Plus one thing you need to remember without this deal India wont build LWR’s at all, If we are building the Russian VVER’s of 1000Mw left and right, it comes with guaranteed fuel supply directly from Russia. Why will we build electricity from LWR’s when we dont have enough Uranium to sustain it, if we had we would have made our own LWR’s instead of making PWHRS/FBR/AWHR/ADS/CHTR ! We will simply carry on with our 3 stage programme. So this talk of diversion is also based on a myth that it assumed we will buy 10 LWR’s and use our own fuel for it even without the deal, If it was the case we could have done (started own LWR programme) that much way before and wouldnt even bother starting a 3 stage programme to use Thorium to begin with.

While this deal might put safe checks on any fuel that India imports so it can’t b used in any weaponisation programmes and it’d also put any new (and some old) reactors under IAEA, this deal in no way would be able to hinder freeing up Indian natural resources for Indian weapons programmes. Or is that possible in anyway??? This is called indirect nuke proliferation (as india is a non-signatory of NPT) something that goes against USA’s non-proliferation principles and that would undoubtedly be used against US in future.

Please see above I just nullified your point that it states It will free up Indias own Uranium for whatever activities.

Yet US is still pushing for this deal. So the next question is Why???:) Please dont tell me u really believe all that talk of geatest and largest democracies???

Again see above.

Chinese moves? Such as?

You name it? Arunachal Pradesh Claims? Using Pakistan to counter India? Funding the red revolution to take up the role of USSR? By this I mean Communists in India working in the influence of China which is a proven fact even before USSR became Russia though at that time Russias commands had more priority than Maos (Russia recently released all documents regarding its role in when it was USSR, “Russian State Archives of Socio-Political History,” in short, RGASPI documents visit them and dig into to find stuffs), What about lobbying against India in various international foras et al? Okay how about the very suicidal proposal of changing course of river Brahmaputra? What about ‘promoting’ Nepals red revolution so that maoist government asks to include China in SAARC and China floodes whole Asia with its market? and alienate Nepal from India? how about moves inside Bangladesh? How about Climatic change concern in Tibet? , which is such a unstable region (gondowana plate and Eurasian plate) that climate change can bring serious effects down the peopls living in low areas from rivers that are flowing from high ! , what about string of pearl strategy?

China is Pakistans friend and Its enemies friend cannot be its friend can it? (dont take the word enemy on a personal level).

Besides one should never ignore one simple fact. China and India are and will always be neigbours, while in interantional politics only mutual interests last longer.:)

Correct, and I predict and tell you the day most Chinese abroad will stop taking up western names up and will read Confucious instead of Marx We will be friends. :p You see Chinese moves today are against Indias interest in certain aspects, we will surely hopefully be long term friends as we are neighbours but as of now there is a acute clash in various aspects of economics.

Iran is too important? Just a little while ago, there was all this talk of India and Iran entering a military agreement in Pakistan. I dont remember anything major that has happened between the two since. But can u imagine Dr Singh inviting Ahmedinejad to india to appear as a special guest in some sort of event under present circumstances? If not, why???

You need to understand Iran and Israel are not hardcore enemies, A stable middle east is not in Arab interest which equals to being not in US interest. Irans economy going up is not in Arab interest, and with respect to India , Arabs are funding terrorism in India, Iran not, Iran to us can act as a counterbalance to Pakistan (say chahabar port?) while Arabs will never do so.

Plus there is a affinity for Iranian peoples for India as a whole in normal (I know because I have met Iranian guys here in univs), maybe it dates back to the parsi connection but yes there is a good sense of working together and I believe there are Indian investments in Iran from private sectors as well.

ahmejidenad cannot be invited to India because India has some obligations towards Israel and Israel is serving Indias some vital needs, if the nuke crisis gets over i dont see any issue regarding the same.

To me ahmajidenad is a mad man, trying too quickly to break away from the world order, guess no one has told him about the ‘middle path’ of Gautama Buddha, which Iran actually needs/needed to follow.

True. US seems to need India at this time, and to India this is very exciting and enticing. However, if and when situations change, India will be in a limbo. US can withdraw support when it wants, and that would be in a drop of a hat. It has done so in the past to others, and there are no indications that it will not do so in the future.

Self interest comes first (not just for US, its common), but it can really hurt if you are dependent on the US in my opinion. Why? Demands placed by the US can be stringent, and has known to be drop support and co-operation abruptly if does not suit its needs. Period.

I do not want to sound too harsh, US is a great country, people are overall very, very good in my opinion. But if you are another country, it would be hard to say that about the US policy makers and its politicians.

For a lack of a proper example (my apologies if offensive, I don’t mean any disrespect): Ever heard of making deal with the Devil? You can make it, but only as long as it suits the Devil. And you will suffer later on.

My last post on this digression, don’t want to derail.

The deal has nothing to do with weapons purchase, Lastly we may have made a deal with the Devil however how will we implement the deal is fundamentally going to be in our hands.

I dont know if you know about the deal or not but its pretty much fine to me, even China has 123 with US, dont quite get why this talk of deal with foreign policy please remember Hyde Act is not what India needs to follow and 123 supercedes Hyde from India, If US wants to break the deal by Hyde let them but ofcourse not without giving us penny back for each brick they take which is incorporated in the text remember US taking back nuclear wastes as well :dev2: , without taking back they just cant stop the LWR’s from working as we will have strategic fuel reserve for lifetime of reactor while we purchase, so much so if our atomic energy act gets amended forget Hyde’s only one clause superceding anything, This way, if the United States. says that the Hyde Act would prevail over the 123 agreement on return of material (ofcourse not without giving us penny back), India can claim that it cannot do so because it has a law of its own that does not permit re-export of material or equipment if it affects the functioning of the nuclear plants. A stalmate.

Please read this,

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20070824501201300.htm

So far things are on Indias interest and India is doing things right and I only hope leadership wont fk up things when it comes to implemention, implementation here refers to different policies. Ground work has been done to keep nuke deal totally outside any other sort of amalgamations.

Nick didnt ahmajidenad was misquoted? I read somewhere? dont know if its true or not though. Iran is Indias friend and it is in Indias interest to mediate between Iran and Israel, Ofcourse Saudi wont like this and will push US as much on this.

So, when was this ATV laid down?

Why are there no pictures?

Or official published details?

There has been no official acknowledgement because This is a programme which was never meant to be recognised officially.

One of good proof of its existence we have is from here, BEL is a PSU (Bharat Electronics Limited)’s Yearly turnover report states,
http://www.bel-india.com/belwebsite/index.aspx?q=&sectionid=259

New products supplied to the Navy include Launch Preparation System and Centralised Real Time Control System for Advanced Technology Vehicle, new generation sonars for submarines, Drishti – an Electronic Warfare system and Lynx – a Fire Control System. New products to the Air Force include High Accuracy Direction Finder. BEL also supplied Advanced Ground Control Station and Avionics Preparation Vehicle for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

huh? when did ATV become a SSBN?

ATV becoming SSBN is speculative, but all sources here and there says it will be a SSBN.

Is there any existing SSBN that’s remotely close to 5000 tonnes?

Check nicks comments.

When did they suddenly get a 5000 km submarine launched version of Agnii>?

The Agni 2 has range of around 3k, The Agni 2AT has more range than that, The Agni 3 has range with full payload of around 5k++, The Agni 3++/3SL/4 will have range with full payload of over 8k which is a further developement of Agni 3, If we see any SLBM it will be the Agni 3SL, It will be a M51 class missile in a bit of dimensions et al.

You can check regarding Agni series here all with official links.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MISSILES/Agni.html

Ramachandran, We know that from literally ages, news are being recycled, There will be ‘provision’ of buying 200 aircrafts but 126 will be bought, the extra numbers incase needed is being kept in the document early so as to avoid pricing issues (see 40 extra MKI deal issue) which might arise later due to the same. This MRCA saga is literally worthless thing to wait for.

kakarat, Thats Ravi sharma again, in self-concluding reports like him there is nothing more to read other than the quotes from developers concerned albeit with names, heck he himself contradicts his previous report in this report.

It is all very well to talk about the project 17A but we have yet to see the project 17 ships enter service and prove themselves. Three hulls are in the water and have been for some time. Yet it has been remarkably quiet. Very little by way of photo’s, which is disappointing considering the prolific image posting of new ships by our Chinese friends. Does anybody have a reasonable explanation for the lack of imagery?

Also for project 17A, does foreign yard involvement mean a domestic design has been abandoned? If so, that would be a big vote of non-confidence as far as the basic project 17 is concerned, which I believe was to be the basis for several flights of ships.

Of course, it could also be that the basic design is good but that there is insufficient yardspace available to build the necessary ships in a given time frame. Then, a foreign yard would build a ship to Indian design.

Ideas anyone?

I dont think there was any plan for developing a totally new design of P17A totally inhouse, plan was always to retrofit a Foreign design with as much Indian electronics and goodies inside, build them home then the second line of frigates make your own based on the experience.

I’d like to have the T45 one, anyways indications are that Navy is moving towards large multipurpose frigates in 6k to 7k class. Very much possibility that there might not be anymore destroyers built after P15A series as well, unless Navy has long term plans for a dedicated TBM destroyer or dedicated Cruiser type Destroyer.

Nothing regarding plans to weight class to if there will be any destroyers or not et al are not known as of now.

India’s Tejas fighter suffers new setback
India’s Tejas fighter suffers new setback
By Radhakrishna Rao

India’s Tejas light combat aircraft programme has suffered a new setback, with sea-level fight tests using two prototype aircraft having demonstrated lower than expected engine performance during take-off and maximum speed demonstrations.

But in a fresh move intended to steady the troubled programme, New Delhi in mid-August announced a co-operative agreement under which its defence industry will develop the aircraft’s multi-mode radar with Israel Aerospace Industries’ Elta Systems subsidiary.

Conducted from Arakkonam in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state and intended to demonstrate the Aeronautical Development Agency aircraft’s performance under dense atmospheric conditions, the recent series of 24 flights revealed that the Tejas was unable to reach its expected maximum speed of Mach 1.05, despite having reached M1.6 at high altitude.

The failure has been attributed to insufficient available thrust from the aircraft’s General Electric F404 engine, and underlines India’s need to replace the US design with the Kaveri powerplant now under development by its Gas Turbine Research Establishment. In common with the wider Tejas programme, the Kaveri project has been dogged by development delays and cost escalations, which have forced New Delhi to order additional F404s to power its initial production batch of lightweight fighters.

Prototype and demonstrator examples of the Tejas have now flown 725 flights, and the type is due to achieve initial operational capability in late 2010.

Announcing the new radar pact, defence minister A K Antony said India’s parliament has approved the co-development agreement with Elta, with Hindustan Aeronautics selected to lead the project. The initiative will replace previous work conducted by the Bangalore-based Electronics and Radar Development Establishment, with technical hitches having prevented a radar design from being integrated with a prototype Tejas.

Antony says the new fire-control radar is needed to support demonstration flights of the fully developed and armed fighter from 2010, and Israeli sources reveal that the sensor will be a further development of Elta’s EL/M-2052 active electronically scanned array.

The company is completing development of the design using IAI’s Boeing 737 flying testbed, and an undisclosed air force recently placed a $95 million contract to acquire the system. Elta says the AESA design can detect up to 64 targets simultaneously, while it can also provide ground mapping services and be used against maritime threats.

Comparitively a much reliable source, So here are some conclusions from the report,

1. The speed issue seems due to F2j3’s, IN20’s and then the flat-rated Kaveri will solve it.

MMR as known and confirmed and as per AFM

1. MMR developement is progressing nicely and one and only some specific modules for only and only A2G mode is to be imported from Israel which will be later replaced by these specific Indian modules under developement. (Nick may correct me in which specific area of A2G (hardware or software) If I’m wrong).

2. LSP 02 will incorporate MMR till then interim measure of Elta 2032 will be used for weapons trials and integration.

MMR as per force (highly unrelible)

1. MMR is now a AESA with JV with Israel which will use Israels 2052 system but the electronics will be replaced by the Indian ones developed for MMR and the system will be further upscaled.

MMR as per Flight global

Seems same as the Force.

Force being right is highly unlikely, though it would have been best if it happened, there is no way to confirm any changes in requirements if any from past few months, until and unless MOD report comes out.

One other scenario : Radar pact with Israel signed, co-developement of 2052 and upscaling it with maximum commonality with MMR modules to install in MRCA, while MMR will go in Tejas replacing Elta 2032 as planned seems the only plausible scenario.

Matt the report is from Ravi Sharma as usual lacks proper facts in proper form just like his previous reports and ofcourse the use of “informed sources” the typical syndrome, with quite of many inaccurate points.

The same writer was also the one who wrote off the MMR as a failure only to have details released later that the A2G mode was to be finalized. He also claimed that there were such huge losses in power transfer that range was reduced on the LCA. Turned out that it was the HACK, and the LCA in contrast has a fully allotted rack for the electronics to be colocated with the RF transmitters. He also wrote that the LCA sufferred from poor estate management, it turned out that it was an issue with the first TDs because of all the Flight test instrumentation stuffed into the bird. Fool also wrote that anything less than an AESA is obsolete, this when the MKI has a PESA, the Mirage and MiG-29 upgrades are getting MSA.

The FrontierIndia article is a much better written one who normally has insider sources as far as I’m concerned of, but whatever is the case the IN20 with increased thrust will solve things hopefully and the flat rated kaveri is always there.