National Defence Corner

No delay in supply of Rafale fighter jets According to latest reports the French ambassador Emmanuel Lenain has said that there will be no delay in the delivery of 36 Rafale fighter jets to India and the timeline for supplying the fighter jets will be strictly respected. He also said that France is also helping the Indian Airforce to arrange the fairy flight of the first 4 Rafale from France to India and there is no reason to speculate that the schedule will not be maintained. Out of the 36 Rafale jets 6 will be twin seater trainers with almost all the features.The IAF has already spent around 400cr rupees to create the required infrastructure at the 2 basis that will operate the Rafale fighter jets.

China looks to claim the 'Whole of Antarctica',after the SCS. Antarctica When the US is cutting back and delaying its activities in the antarctic, both China and Russia are silently expanding their operations. Peter Jennings the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has said that China's interest on Antarctica is not limited to the short term and both Russia and China are using the cover of scientific research to claim over the continent for its minerals and military advantages. Note:Content obtained from original sources I thank feedpost for accepting this blog and giving it a rank in its list for the Top 10 defence blogs.link to feedpost list-https://blog.feedspot.com/indian_defence_blogs/

Naval Tejas perfect candidate for the replacement of T45 of the US Navy. The US Navy has begun it's search for a new trainer to replace it's Boeing T45 and the competitors in the acquisition program includes Boeing's T7A, Lockheed Martin's T50A and Leonardo's T100.  But non of these jets have been developed for carrier based operations and they have not been modified to demonstrate carrier based landings and takeoffs. Top experts have said that India's Naval Tejas  program has already demonstrated the required capabilities and also has a two seater naval variant as demanded by the US Navy and it makes Naval Tejas the perfect candidate if India responds to request for the information send out by the US Navy.

Covid-19 delays INS VIKRANT by 6 months. The basin trail of the first indeginous aircraft carrier of India was initially scheduled to begin from the 12th of March2020 which was moved to April due to several construction delays and as per latest reports the lockdown will also result in a delay of 6 months and the basin trail is expected to extend further to 2021. Cochin had already missed multiple deadlines in this critical project and the way the Chinese navy is expanding the Indian shipyard also needs to face this project. Note:Content obtained from original sources.

The Indian Airforce has shelved its 3 major foreign acquisition projects  According to recent reports IAF has shelved its 3 major foreign acquisitions projects worth over 8000cr rupees which includes procurement of 38 Pilatus basic trainers from Switzerland worth 1000cr rupees, 20 hawk trainers from UK worth over 2000cr rupees and plans to upgrade its 80 Jaguar fighter jets with Honeywell engines from the US. The IAF Chief said that the Indian Airforce is going with HAL and some other engine related upgrades and it will buy 70 of these indeginous trainers. Note: Content obtained from original sources.

Indian Airforce(IAF) has decided to procure 450 fighter jets for its north and west frontiers which includes 36 Rafale fighter jets,200 variants of LCA Tejas,114 multi role fighter jets-Rafale from Dassault aviation and 100 5.5 AMCA Stealth fighters. IAF Chief's' Rafale class' contradicts the statement of Chief of Defence Staff which stated the the IAF will replace the 114 MMRCA will be replaced with different variants of LCA Tejas. Dassault also confirmed ,Rafale is the front runner in the competition and IAF is not willing to replace it with locally developed platforms. This all proves that the present economic situation have not dented the plan for procuring 114 Rafale fighter jets under the Make in India initiative.

The covid pandemic has affected the the Indian economy drastically due to which Indian government will promote make in India program by developing indeginous defence products.This was clear when defence minister Nirmala Sitaram proposed a budget to help private defence companies to produce indeginous defence items which will be banned from exports.The Indian government will now promote indeginous products made by in India rather than foreign defence companies to produce a defence product for them. This might be a setback for the Indian airforce as its 114MMRCA tender might not be approved. In that case the MWF/Tejas Mark2A might be the alternative choice of the the Indian airforce.This might be a setback for the airforce as both the aircrafts were meant for different roles in the Indian airforce.