Meeting IAF’s demand for French combat aircraft cheaply

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

It is clear that behind IAF’s concerted and sustained moves over the years to delay the Tejas LCA induction, is an institutional aversion to indigenously designed and developed combat aircraft. This has a long history starting with the cold-blooded killing in the early 1970s of the Marut Mk-II, and the loss of a generation of gifted aircraft designers led by Dr Raj Mahindra who cut their teeth under the great Fockewulf design bureau chief, Dr. Kurt Tank. It is reflected in the pitch that gets shriller every time some service brass opens his mouth, demanding foreign warplanes, in the present context, the Rafale. Considering the quite exorbitant payout involved in obtaining this aircraft — which is plainly giving the Defmin Parrikar the conniptions, because he is saddled with the unenviable task of reconciling PM Modi’s manifestly spur-of-the-moment statement in Paris of offtaking 36 Rafales with the paucity of resources confronting his ministry.

An easy way out for Parriker to escape the tight corner he is in and junk the Rafale but also meet IAF’s craving for foreign combat aircraft, especially French, fighter planes, is to acquire from a financially beleagured Greece its nearly three squadrons of Mirage 2000 aircraft IAF so dearly loves. The Hellenic AF operates 45 Mirage 2000s — 20 EGM/BGM variant and 25 “5 Mk-II” version.The difference between the Greek EGM/BGM and the 5-Mk II Mirage 2000 is only an external IFR. Greece is unlikely to be disarmed — it also has some 150-odd F-16 C/Ds. So Athens would happily part with its Mirages, what with the Greek govt of Tsipras being hounded by German creditors to repay the outstanding national debt totaling nearly 200% of its GDP! The Indian fleet of Mirage 2000, it may be recalled, is being upgraded @ $52 million/plane to the Mirage 2000-5 standard.

Further, Qatar is in the market to dispose of its 9 Mirage 2000s which too India can buy.

Together that’s 45 Mirage 2000s from Greece and 9 of the same from Qatar for a complement of 54 planes, doubling IAF’s Mirage 2000 fleet. India, moreover, will not have to invest in the servicing infrastructure which already exists, nor will monies have to be splurged either on training pilots or servicing technicians. It only needs an imaginative gambit by the Modi govt to approach Athens with a deal it cannot refuse, say, $100 million per Mirage 2000 in the Hellenic AF with all the stores, spares, and weapons holdings for this aircraft. That will cost the Indian exchequer $4.5 billion for the Greek Mirages and another billion $ for the Qatari aircraft, the deal totaling less than $6 billion for 54 Mirage 2000-5s versus $8-$9 billion for only 36 Rafales, which last monies do not factor the downstream costs of sustaining the Rafale in IAF, which will be many multiples of this price tag. Besides, what’s the performance falloff between the Mirage 2000-5 and the Rafale? Minimal. So, OK, the latter has AESA. But, it is not beyond Indian ingenuity to outfit the Mirages so acquired along with the IAF’s Mirage fleet, with the DRDO-built AESA that’s going to be tested later this year — a product developed jointly with Israel based on the Elta 2032 computer. The sensible economics involved should persuade Modi to backtrack on his Paris statement which, if deconstructed, was not a commitment to buy at all.

How’s this a bad deal??? Get going Mr Parrikar.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Defence Industry, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian ecobomic situation, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Military Acquisitions, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Weapons, West Asia | 22 Comments

‘Uf yoo ma’ at Ufa

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Remember that song with the nonsensical lyrics — “Uf yoo ma” in that Dev Anand-Asha Parekh starrer of yore, Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai? These words meant nothing but denoted joyous and uplifted spirits! In the Russian town of Ufa, the site of the SCO summit, where Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif met this morning at the former’s express invitation, there may be reason to break out into song after all. It is a bit of a dam burst of relief after a year of frustrations building-up on both sides. The optimism is not so much because of the practical “steps” sketched in the joint statement, namely, talks in Delhi between the two NSAs on terrorism, “early meetings” of the paramiliary chiefs followed by that of their respective DGMOs (Directors-General, Mil Ops), release of fisherfolk, facilitation of religious tourism, and expediting of the Mumbai blast case and conveying of (Lakhvi’s) voice samples. Rather, it is the last line in the statement — Modi’s ready acceptance of the Pak PM’s invitation to attend the SAARC summit in Islamabad next year. This is a big thing because Modi has not only agreed to resume a dialogue but agreed to visit Pakistan — a totally unexpected decision considering how vehemently he campaigned in the 2014 general elections about the futility of talks with Pakistan when Pak-branded terrorists are creating mayhem in Kashmir. The most important aspect of this is that it will elevate Mian Sharif politically and strengthen his hold on government. Because such an invitation couldn’t have been a spur-of-the moment thing but a calculated move that had the Pak Army’s blessings to see how Modi would react, the onus is on Islamabad to ensure Modi’s visit goes off spectacularly well because that will decide how quickly the normalization of relations will happen. GHQ Rawalpindi’s assent means the Pakistan Army will not want to spoil the situation leading up to that Islamabad meeting at a time when its own fighting resources are stretched between the FATA/Afghan border, the Iranian Front with Jundullah stirring up a heap of trouble, and the live border in the east on the LOC, and is seeking some lessening of military pressure from the Indian side. Gen Ruheel Sharif, moreover, like his predecessor Gen Aftab Kayani, has repeatedly said the principal threat to Pakistan is Islamic extremism, not India. A longish spell without deliberately-planned hostile actions on the border will both be a respite from the usual carryings-on and could lead to more months, then years, then decades (??!!) w/o incidents of stray violence with the potential for conflagration, and peace will become the order of the day. And that is when the resolution by negotiation of all outstanding disputes that have vexed bilateral relations will at once become easier and be conducted w/o rancor. This is precisely the sort of denouement Modi would wish for in order to implement his grand vision of the subcontinental states in warm but loose embrace, orientating outwards — rather than as in the past, inwards and being at each other’s throats. Should things work out, what’s being talked about in the SCO — of a free trade area and economic union, could be emulated here in South Asia with India at the centre, its economy driving prosperity in the adjoining countries, especially Pakistan. That Modi also met with the Afghan President Abdul Ghani is also significant, notwithstanding New Delhi’s being frozen out of the various fora for consolidating peace and order in Afghanistan. His previous visits to the Central Asian Republics — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan on this extended trip could naturally lead to connecting SAARC more intimately with Central Asia and with SCO as another order of business starting with in the realms of economic activity. All this augurs well. Keep your fingers crossed!

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Central Asia, China, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Army, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Maldives, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Russia, society, South Asia, Sri Lanka | 5 Comments

Yasen-class SSNs offered to India?

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

President Putin’s regime is obviously unwilling to cede first place as armaments supplier to India and is ready to trump any Western country with deals that can’t be beat. In the news is the story about the proposal to set up India as the major hub for upgrade, refit, and repairs of Kilo-class submarines in the inventories of states in the extended Indian Ocean region, from Iran to Vietnam. This is fine. But a still more impressive offer apparently made to India is the transfer of the improved Yasen-M class SSN — the most advanced in the Russian naval list. Russian submersibles may be beaten by their US counterparts in terms of acoustic silencing features but, in turn, cannot match, as the reputed naval analyst Norman Palomar has observed, the far smaller turbulence signature (from less cavitation noises, placement of the forward-tilting conning tower, etc) of Russian boats. Indeed, despite the vaunted ASW capabilities of the USN, a Victor-III class Russian SSN around 2000 tailed an Ohio-class SSBN almost to its pen in Guam w/o anybody getting wind of it — that’s how loud the US boomer is in turbulence terms and how little turbulence is generated by the Russian boat. Russian subs have since the Sixties carried electro-optical devices in the sail and the hull to detect turbulence and identify enemy subs by their turbulence signatures. The Yasen can be in the SSGN cruise missile-carrying configuration, or, if India so wishes, it can be modified to carry a mixed ordnance load of conventional cruise missiles and nuclear ballistic missiles. That would be a devastating dual-purpose land attack-cum-strategic targeting weapons platform non pareil to have in IN service. There’s nothing like the Yasen-class with the Chinese Navy.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Defence Industry, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Technology transfer, United States, US., Vietnam, Weapons, Western militaries | 13 Comments

“We don’t need an enemy……”

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Devesh Kapur of the University of Pennsylvania yesterday spoke at the Nehru Memorial Library on “India; The Suffocating State”. He retailed information that is familiar to most of us but with a twist in the tale. His most telling line was “The challenge India faces is the Indian state” which does difficult things well — Mars mission, etc — but cannot manage simpler more basic things, like providing public health, sanitation, law and public order, water, etc.As a state promising to undertaking to deliver “maximally” in all areas, it cannot deliver even “minimally”. This because the state and its social goods state delivery agencies are under-staffed but over-bureaucratised!

And then a devastating sidebar on IAF — On average it loses one fighting squadron every three years owing to accidents sourced 50:50 to pilot error and technical malfunction. Said Prof Kapur “Ïndia does not need an enemy! It does a good job of disarming itself!”

And finally the state does nothing about public sector enterprises that haemorrhage huge resources w/o anybody in govt batting an eyelid. Thus Rs 58,000 crores have been recently invested in Air India not only with no prospect of the airline recovering but with no end in sight of end to public monies being frittered this way. The irony is this airline is used mostly by the relatively welloff and in the context of pvt airlines running cost-efficiently w/o any public subvention! Most remarkably CAG which picks up on lesser scams has not once investigated Air India and its finances!!

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Culture, domestic politics, Great Power imperatives, Indian Air Force, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, society, South Asia, Weapons | Leave a comment

Great developments on the Tejas front; duplicate them for FMBT

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Leadership has often been the difference between a successful and failed indigenous armament or weapons development project to which national prestige is committed. After the departure of Dr Kurt Tank from the HF-24 supersonic fighter project and the sidelining of Dr Raj Mahindra when the Mk-II of this aircraft was killed by IAF in order to procure the Anglo-French Jaguar low level strike aircraft, which mission the Marut Mk-II would have done far better. It initiated the process of IAF going over lock and stock and barrel to importing combat aircraft to the detriment of the security of the country and the national interest, a direction a seemingly unconcerned Indian govt actively encouraged — with defence minister Jagjivan Ram in the post-Emergency Janata govt allegedly pocketing rich commissions as the Maneka Gandhi edited magazine’Surya’ then claimed.

For the first time now Tejas will have two tested and proven persons at the wheel, with the Indian govt finally doing the right thing for a change with respect to the LCA. It has appointed Commodore CD Balaji, fresh from his success spearheading the development of the naval variant of Tejas as chief of the Aeronautical Development Agency, Bangalore. It was Balaji who ensured, for instance, that the navalised Tejas is a far more advanced aircraft than its air force sibling. Levcons (leading edge vortex controllers) have been configured into its airframe, making it a far more maneuverable warplane able, for instance, to pull high angles of attack at low speeds. Balaji’s hands-on control, commitment, and ability to eliminate/remove systemic and procedural obstacles are by now the stuff of legend. Senior US Navy officers whom I met in Washington some years back, who were part of the consultancy team Pentagon approved to liaise with the Balaji project, were full of praise for the streamlined manner in which everything worked, something they confessed they did did not expect. The USN consultants were hired to advice on such things as the strengthening of the aircraft’s fuselage, the exact placement of the arrester hook, the choice of an appropriate jet engine with the needed power-rating, etc.

In parallel with Balaji taking over ADA, Commodore Jaydeep Maolankar has assumed command of the National Flight Test Centre, also in Bangalore, replacing Air Commodore Muthanna, who was in place since 2011. NFTC with its team of test pilots is tasked with testing aircraft for their air worthiness and ability to do combat maneuvers they are designed for. Mavlankar, an MS in aerospace engineering from IISc, like Balaji at ADA, is the right fit — the proverbial round peg in a round hole (unlike the history of GOI usually appointing the wrong persons to lead critically significant high-technology projects and then wondering why they veer off into failure) So, the designer agency and testing unit will be in sync and Tejas can now expect to begin rolling fast to cross certification hurdles.

The important thing to note is that both Balaji and Maolankar are senior naval officers, and typify the navy’s quite commendable levels of commitment and eagerness to validate and operate indigenous military hardware, in this case, combat aircraft. It indicates defmin Manohar Parrikar’s recognition about the importance of getting the Tejas inducted into operational squadrons in the navy and air force fast. It is perhaps the first tremendously right and potent set of appointments he has made. It is now for him to ensure Messrs Balaji and Maolankar are not tripped up by the usual villains lurking in the corners — mostly in IAF and not least in his own ministry of defence and its department of defence production. He needs in particular roughly to drag IAF by the ear, if necessary, so to say, to appreciating and prioritising the Tejas in their scheme of things — rather than have this service clamour ceaselessly for Rafale and similar foreign aircraft.

This should also signal to the army that it is wrong to so casually torpedo the Future Main Battle Tank design, as follow-on, to the Arjuna MBT that beat the Russian T-90 hollow in field trials in all respects. And Parrikar should squelch at the earliest any move by army to tilt towards the Russian Armata tank displayed at the recent Red Square parade in Moscow to mark the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. He should rescind army’s RFPs, and tell the COAS and his cohort that the army will have the DRDO-designed FMBT perhaps with its production shared half-and-half between DPSUs and a private sector combine in a competitive set up, both to judge the effectiveness/efficiency of public and private sector manufacturing skills and processes, and to get the best product out to the army, because it definitely will not have an imported tank. If Parrikar can summon that kind of conviction, MOD/DDP will fall in line, pronto.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Military Acquisitions, Russia, russian military, society, South Asia, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons | 27 Comments

Sour Grapes and Screw-ups

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

The long rumoured book by AS Dulat, head of RAW during the previous BJP government, has finally hit the bookshops. Haven’t bought the book yet, but from the available news reports on it, the author has avoided genuinely deconstructing many controversial events during his tenure and supposedly retailed in this book, in that blame has not been assigned to any particular person or agency for many of the fiascos. Certainly, there was no greater fiasco than the Indian Airlines hijacking to Kandahar which could have been preempted at the start when the plane, running low on fuel, landed in Amritsar. And this is where everything that could go wrong did. Because in any crisis the first thing that happens is that the Indian government loses its head — even as loss of nerve is the other predetermined response — the normal in such situations, everybody seemed engaged but no one person in authority seemed ready to take charge, impose order and discipline up and down the line, cut out all sorts of agencies who butt in to further foul up matters. Dulat fails to ascribe the blame to the one person who should have been held responsible — the late Brajesh Mishra who, as NSA and PPS to the PM, actually could have brought rapid closure to this sordid drama being played out on the Amritsar airport tarmac, but did not. To blame cabsec Prabhat Kumar for vacillating as the estimable KPS Gill does — his Punjab Police commando unit was immediately deployed by him around the airport and could at any time have been ordered to shoot their way in or, at a minimum, to disable the aircraft — is to assume any bureaucrat placed in a similar situation would anything differently. Dulat mentions the then director, IB, for instance, fuming at orders from Delhi to puncture the aircraft tyres, wondering if he and his agency were some kind of cycle repair facility(!), thereby indicating the brahminical attitude to not getting one’s hands dirty, as if such a job was some menial task meant for lowlier persons or agencies. Was he punished for this attitude, cashiered on the spot? Of course not. This when the IB’s correct response should have been not to tarry, waste time questioning these orders, but for one of its personnel to run to the aircraft and shoot the damn tyres to smithereens with a service revolver or to call in the paramilitary to take potshots at the tyres if this was beyond the ken of IB officers (!) and thus terminate the hijack episode right there. Does this require great confabulation at the Delhi-end or even at the Amritsar-end or merely the exercise of some common sense at the level of a constable for God’s sake! That no one in Delhi, or in any of the numerous police and intelligence agencies on the scene in Amritsar, thought of pushing this option — asking the IB director to shut up and get on with the business of taking out the tyres, rather than waiting for the vaunted NSG to be airlifted from their Haryana base which seemed atrocious then and immeasurably silly some two decades later. What great skill is required to aim and fire a machine gun or even a 5.56mm INSAS rifle at the tyres of a stationary passenger plane in the interim period before the NSG got there? If the profoundly idiotic agencies of govt did not want to get that violent, they could have just parked fire-brigade trucks stationed at the airport in front of and in the rear of the aircraft, thus making it impossible for it to move. Worse, as was revealed in my previous writings — some of them on this blog — precisely these and other means for disabling hijacked aircraft, were practiced by an extended inter-agency and paramilitary exercise only the year before, codenamed, ironically, ‘SOUR GRAPES’!!! So, what happened? If even tested and practiced actions are NOT implemented when the foreseen crisis or emergency actually occurs, then what’s the point of preparing for any such contingency in the first place??? This quite extraordinary failure points up the basic flaw in the Indian govt’s working — when it comes to the crunch nobody from the lowest to the highest — wants to approve decisive action. The ex-post facto justification offered at the time, and revived now, that the likelihood of on-board passengers being hurt or killed is what deterred the govt is to continue to make excuses for a govt system that, plainly speaking, is institutionally not geared to handle any such crisis or emergency very well. This bodes ill for the future because all any terrorist group has to do to make its political mark, wrench concessions out of New Delhi, is to hold any vehicle or platform with civilians hostage for the govt to buckle under “public pressure” and accept terms detrimental to national interests. The Indian government has still not come out with a clear policy statement to the effect that any hijacking or hostage-taking by any means will not involve any negotiations of any kind with the terrorists, and that such episodes will end in only way — the death or capture of the terrorists involved, even if this means absorbing collateral civilian deaths and casualties. The print and television media that unctuously report on Dulat’s conclusions, should also be mindful of their role and complicity in pressuring the Vajpayee govt at the time when TV cameras multiplied the public effect of affected families asking for the govt to give into the terrorists of the Kandahar-bound plane. Even so, there’s no excuse for the GOI to have done what it did — ease off and let the fueled-up aircraft leave.

It is time Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a standing order to all police and intelligence agencies at the centre and in the states that there will be no negotiating with terrorists in such situations for any reason at any time, and that they are instructed to at the first instance and opportunity disable the vehicle/platform by any and all means, thus preventing the escape of the outlaws. He should use his “man ki baat” radio programme and also propagate on TV that his govt will not allow people to protest or put pressure on the govt in such emergencies, and if such pressure is nevertheless somehow imposed he was free to ignore it in the larger national interest of dealing with terrorists and eradicating terrorism. There’s no other way to signal GOI’s resolve to terrorists everywhere to finish them.

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, Culture, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Army, Indian para-military forces, Indian Politics, Internal Security, society, South Asia, Special Forces, Terrorism | 4 Comments

Incomparable indigenous RLGs — French no match; see!!

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Going to France for ring laser gyros as navaid for the Brahmos cruise missile is a ridiculous thing the Indian govt has done. Whether the Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh even understood what he was actually asking for when he requested the French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian for technology assistance with the ring laser gyro as guidance system on the Brahmos is doubtful. He would have merely learnt by rote from a note given him by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) before regurgitating it to the Frenchman.

Minister Inderjit was in Paris for the Air Show where the Pakistan Air Force flew its JF-17, the 4- gen aircraft and managed to snag several customers — at a time when the Indian govt is sitting on the sidelines confused and baffled about the best way to proceed on the 4.5 generation Tejas LCA which only needs a determined govt push to get it into IAF squadrons and for it to draw interest from a whole host of states that would be keen to buy it. Incidentally, the states that have shown definite interest in the Sino-Pak JF-17 include Nigeria and Sri Lanka.

Is this junior minister or, for that matter, the Union minister for defence Manohar Parrikar aware that (1) the Agni-prgramme head GV Sekaran-produced ring laser gyro (RLG) the technology base for the country’s Mangalayan Mars probe? If this RLG can get the Indian space vehicle on a “slingshot”course to the distant red planet on the first try, you think it will face problems getting the Brahmos dead on a terrestrial target? (2) the Indian-made RLG outfits both the Agni ballistic missiles and the Shourya and the K-15 boost-glide missiles. (3) the RLGs on ballistic missiles, as experts will tell you, have to have very high axial accelerations capability. On the other hand, cruise missiles (CMs)/boost glide vehicles (BGVs) require a very high lateral accelerations capability in order to pull-off maneuvers by the vehicle. More specifically, for violent maneuvers, the RLG needs to have a very high tolerance which translates into low % error as a function of G’s pulled. Further, in CM’s and BGV’s, the RLG is usually the primary navigation unit, especially in an intense ECM environment such as GPS jamming, spoofing, etc. Equipped thus on the Shaurya and K-15 (both BGV’s), the RLG works just fine. BGV’s are what scares everybody. This is because they are virtually impossible to intercept by any ABM system.

The stories rife in certain GOI/MOD circles that the Indian RLGs have greater axial tolerance but lack sufficient lateral tolerance are, therefore, so much motivated poppycock!

There is visual record of the RLG helping Brahmos prosecute the impossibly difficult S maneuver and punch a hole through a small triangular metal plate on a wall (and the wall itself). The exercise was to simulate an attack on a hypothetical chemical weapons plant on enemy territory. This does not seem like a RLG with an inferior lateral performance. And this video was circa: 2010. The Indian RLGs have been improved since then and ECM jamming might very well have be factored into them. The guys at the Sekaran outfit are damned good. See the video clip and judge for yourself Mr Parrikar and other doubting Thomases! Watch it at

and

The French item, say, Sagem RLG in contention looks like this:
http://www.sagem.com/aerospace/military-aircraft/navigation-systems

It is unlikely the Indian RLG performance can be bettered in any flight envelope and is definitely miles better than the French item. In the event, going to France for this technology when a far better and proven technology is available at home seems like suppression of an already developed indigenous capability and wasting national wealth.
———-
P.S.: The person who designed the algorithm for the “Kalman filters” to help the BGVs pull very violent maneuvers and to detect incorrect sensor inputs is a desi who once worked in an Indian R&D dept, was hounded out of it, and is now sought by and works on contract basis with top scientific R&D orgs in Asia and elsewhere. So much for the Indian govt nursing Indian talent for national good!

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, Culture, Defence Industry, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West | 4 Comments

Ladies bringing down a Manmohan-itis-infected PM?

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

For a supposedly strong, no-nonsense guy, with a streak of ruthlessness in him — a necessary accoutrement of any successful politician, incidentally — Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems infected by Manmohan-itis. His indecisiveness is a revelation and harks back to when his predecessor occupied 7, Race Course Road, and constantly looked over his shoulder to see the signals from Sonia G at 10 Janpath. Except, the PM is the puppet-master and has no need to seek external guidance or direction. It is surprising that he did not at the first hint of trouble with external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje, and HRD minister Smriti Irani immediately dismiss all the three with no promises about these ladies being hoisted back into their old posts, but a definite warning that they’d have to be declared clean by the courts before they had a chance at political revival. The
(mis)deeds of these three ladies was surely known to the PM — through intelligence and police reports — before they were appointed (and Raje before she was permitted to lead the BJP at the hustings in Rajasthan). Or, is there no vetting by law enforcement/police agencies before potential appointees are announced for high political positions, no scrutiny of precisely the kind of malfeasance and ethical shortfalls that can quickly turn government claims of incorruptibility and high values to dust?

Even so, what prevented the PM from acting promptly to preempt the cloudburst of corrupt behavior? He could have called Raje over, instructed her to resign on the pain of the IB, RAW, and the Enforcement Directorate digging full throttle into her past to unearth God knows what! After all, the Scindias are a canny erstwhile royal family that ensured it was on the right side of whatever dispensation was in power with a neat division of political loyalty between the left-of-centre Congress party and the right-of-centre Bharatiya Janata Party to ensure the Family interests are preserved and protected. One can imagine in the process a dumpster-load of skeletons that could be unearthed to write finis to Raje’s career and her extended “royal” family for good. Besides, after the sidelining of LK Advani — a sore loser if there’s one –she has insubstantial support within the ruling party.

Likewise, Sushma Swaraj — another of Advani’s protégés — could have been dumped without compunction. It is a bit incomprehensible that she has been a BJP fixture for so long, considering she actively opposed Narendra Modi’s ascent and contested for the PM’s post without having anything like comparable popular support. For an outsider with no IOUs in Delhi, the reasons Modi included her in his cabinet remain a bit of mystery. It is not as if Narendra Modi needed to install a cabinet of rivals — as he had no opposition within the party, and still doesn’t. She could have likewise been told, at the first hint of trouble, to stand down, and seek to clear the charges of ethical wrongdoing by going to the Court.

And then there’s the serpent, Lalit Modi, who has tempted these two matronly Eves into flagrant indiscretions. Sure, as finance minister Arun Jaitley has hinted, the govt is going to go after him, let the ED loose on him, and he is bound to be corralled. But the former IPL boss has already warned he has ammunition that can fell Jaitley as well, who as head of the Delhi cricket board or whatever it is called, has to worry.

A more niggling problem for the PM with his namesake is their shared moniker — MODI. In a country where Indira exploited her Gandhi surname and was believed by masses of voters to be some relation of the Mahatma which misperception, in the early part of her political career she did nothing to upend, the name sticks and can hurt or benefit. Lalit Modi’s legal troubles here and abroad will no doubt be sought by opposition parties to be propagated as related in some central way to the Gujarati Modi and PM. It’ll be damned difficult for Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo to work their out of this perceptional mess at election time.

Smriti Irani — she is a comely, gritty-gutsy political infighter, for sure. But handing her the HRD ministry was like giving a child a box of matches and placing it near a powder keg, and hoping she won’t blow up the house! Plainly, bright though she may be, she simply does not have the intellect — a capacity for facile eloquence in English and Hindi is surely not the only qualification for a minister tasked with turning the unleavened demographic mass into gold, as driver of the country’s future. She lacks the intellectual width, depth, and heft and it is doubtful she even understands the import of educational arcana such as the importance of independent functioning of the IITs and IIMs, which she means to chain down with God-awful govt regulations, transforming them into another genus of non-functioning agencies. But the PM has a soft corner for her fighting qualities and her readiness to take-on the Gandhi family in Amethi and elsewhere. She nevertheless has to clear her name — her “Yale degree” notwithstanding! Here again, the PM failed by not instantly distancing her from his govt.

Irani is, like Raje and Swaraj, a millstone round the PM’s neck, making the life of this govt more difficult than it needs to be. The coming Monsoon session of Parliament threatens to be only the curtain-raiser. So the question is: Why would Narendra Modi want to endanger the credibility and respect the BJP govt continues to enjoy merely to provide political cover for a bunch of ladies who have proved too clever by half and had their comeuppance coming.

Posted in Culture, domestic politics, Europe, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, society, South Asia | 1 Comment

Why satnav and French RLG on Brahmos?

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

If as is being bandied about the French were approached for the ring laser gyro (RLG) as navigation aid on the Brahmos, the story makes even less sense! The VG Sekaran-led Advanced Systems Laboratory, Hyderabad, also produced the RLG for the advanced and highly accurate Agni-5 IRBM — of course, did I write A-6 originally? Oops! — which missile is comparable to the best in the world. If this indigenous RLG is good enough for the A-5 why is it not good enough for the Brahmos? Further, for cruise missile guidance there are more spoof-proof means available than satellite navigation. Such as terrain-mapping, etc. Hence the story gets curiouser! France is apparently GOI’s go-to country for high-tech. Except a more commercial-minded supplier who has time and again pocketed Indian money but not delivered the technology contracted for (for example, accelerometers) cannot be imagined, and this is the country India is going to trust????? And worse, the relationship with France is to be at the expense of Russia??? The more one thinks of how things are going wrong strategically the more one worries about the direction national security policies are headed.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, Cyber & Space, Defence Industry, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Russia, russian assistance, satellites, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, Weapons | 3 Comments

Going to the French for Brahmos guidance?!!!

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

An extraordinary development has come to my notice: French electronics/avionics companies, possibly Safran [not Thales], has been approached by some Indian government agency for the guidance system for the supersonic Brahmos cruise missile. This is perfectly ridiculous, considering the Block 3 version of this missile has an indigenously-produced guidance system that enables it to execute a “slashing attack” angled on to the sides of large surface combatants that simply cannot be defended. Three of these missiles, each with with 1,000kg chemical high explosive warhead, can sink a Nimitz-class CVN. The Blk 2 variant of the Brahmos (equipping two artillery regiments deployed against China) can be fired vertically over the Himalayan mountains which then hurtles down vertically before leveling out for the final kill-run to target. With Indian software permitting such maneuvers in Blk 2 and Blk 3 Brahmos, what the hell can the French teach us, leave alone better us in the guidance software sphere? In fact, no French missile has anything remotely comparable.

Now consider what the ramifications of going to the French with the Brahmos are: It will be construed as breach of contract by the Russian company NPO Machinostroeyenia because it will open up design specifications of the missile to France (and then the rest of the West). This is bad because Russia has decided to field the Brahmos as well (which means more custom for the JV, the Brahmos Aerospace company). It will also immediately imperil the transactions to (1) obtain for immediate use the Kashalot SSN and the Iribis — 40% complete, as the third Akula nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine, (2) finalise the collaborative agreement for the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, (3) the Su-30 and MiG-29 upgrade programmes, (4) the underway improved spares and servicing support/supply chain for all Russian-sourced military hardware with all three armed services, and (5) sensitive, high-technology, cooperation.

The thought arises that this development, assuming the Indian government is foolish enough to go through with it, could not be better designed to sever the Indian military’s Russian connection. This is something China has been pressuring Moscow on, especially re: FGFA. There are lots of damnfool things the Indian government has done and is embarked on doing, but this takes the cake! While all those wishing to diminish India’s Russian connection will be gleeful, the nationalists in the country concerned about the national interest and this nation’s security now have good reason to tremble at how India is going deeper and deeper into hock of Western countries with no counterbalancing moves in sight. Hope to God this is just one of those rumours that do the rounds in Delhi, and is without any real substance.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons, Western militaries | 4 Comments