Monthly Archives: August 2018

India’s long-range anti-submarine, reconnaissance, surveillance and electronic jamming capabilities in the Indian Ocean Region are going to get a further boost with the induction of four more P-8I multi-mission aircraft from the US next year. India has the option of buying another six from Boeing to be negotiated later in 2021, people familiar with the developments in New Delhi and Seattle said.

The Indian Navy variant of the P-8A Poseidon – P-8I where I stands for India – is essentially designed for maritime patrol. Integrated with the Harpoon Block II air launched missiles and lightweight torpedoes, the reconnaissance craft – it can carry 129 sonobuoys to locate subs – turns into a deadly submarine killer that can also launch anti-ship missiles.

The proposed acquisitions come against the backdrop of China’s efforts to militarise the South China Sea and expand its sea footprint.

Beijing had already acquired a string of ports in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran and east Africa to not only contain the Indian Navy but also challenge the presence of US Central Command forces as well as French and British Navy.

Beijing has 70 percent stake in Kyaukpyu port in Myanmar, which sits in the Bay of Bengal, Hambantota port in South Sri Lanka dominates the Indian Ocean, Gwadar port in Pakistan sits on the mouth of Gulf of Oman and the port of Jask in Iran is located on the edge of Persian Gulf.

National security planners believed that the possibility of China attempting to replicate its aggressive posture along the Line of Actual Control at a time of its choosing in the Indian Ocean Region was very real, a government official said.

India also inched closer to formalising the anti-China QUAD – Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – strategic grouping. The United States, Japan and Australia are the other members.

In some measure, the QUAD is already a reality on the high seas due to India signing the Communications, Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) agreement in September 2019. The P-8I helped.

The pact provided the legal framework for exchange of encrypted communication. P-8I makes this possible with ease, particularly since the aircrafts are interoperable, can communicate securely and is designed for .

“This is a de-facto QUAD because these have interoperability with the P-8A Poseidon delivered to other countries,” said the official.

The secure communications enables one aircraft to share real-time operational intelligence, including a Common Tactical Picture with other P-8 aircraft.

The P-8I aircraft is designed for long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. It operates with joint and combined

But it can be used elsewhere too. The military had relied on the reconnaissance aircraft for surveillance during the ongoing Ladakh standoff with China as well as the 2017 Doklam standoff.

It has a range of about 2,200 km and flies at a maximum speed of 490 knots, or 789 km per hour.

The negotiations for the purchase of six more P-8I aircraft are yet to begin, a government official in New Delhi said. The purchase of six P-8I was cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council in November 2019, long before the stand-off with an aggressive China along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

The soldiers who die while on Covid-19 duty will be declared martyrs, according to Hindustan Times’ sister publication Hindustan. A proposal in this regard was sent by the security forces to the government and the Union home ministry has given its in-principle approval, Hindustan reported.

The family of these soldiers who die while being at the forefront of fighting the war against the coronavirus disease will be given a support of Rs 15 lakh, the report further said.

The government is in the process of uploading the details of those soldiers who died on Covid-19 duty. It will also list the bank account numbers and other necessary details of the family members of these soldiers so that the donation can be given directly.

The financial support that the government has announced will be given from ‘Bharat Ke Veer’ corpus. It was started by the home ministry in 2017. The government has created a Web portal for people who want to donate to the fund. It also has the information about soldiers who have been martyred. The donation can be made straight to the family of the soldier.

Hindustan spoke to an official who said that the martyr status for soldiers who die due to Covid-19 infection will help the family.

The Bharat Ke Veer fund had Rs 6.40 crore when it was set up in 2017. The amount increased to Rs 19.43 crore in 2018. After the Pulwama attack in 2019, the entire country came forward to help the family members of the soldiers and the amount in the fund surged to Rs 250 crore.

So far, 8,113 soldiers of the security forces have contracted the coronavirus disease. While 4,512 have recovered, the active cases in the forces stand at 3,562. There have been 39 coronavirus deaths in these forces with the maximum 15 fatalities in the CRPF, 10 in the BSF and nine in CISF, three in the ITBP and two personnel have succumbed to the disease in the SSB.

A US Navy carrier strike group, led by USS Nimitz, is expected to conduct maritime drills with Indian warships near Andaman and Nicobar Islands this week, against the backdrop of the India-China border standoff, people familiar with developments said on Monday.

The drills also come at a time when tensions have mounted over China’s activities in South China Sea, where the US Navy just conducted a major exercise.

The Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy is currently carrying out manoeuvres near Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The two navies will conduct a passage exercise near the islands to hone interoperability, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity. USS Nimitz has transited the Malacca Strait and is on its way to the Persian Gulf, they said.

“A passage exercise is normally undertaken whenever an opportunity arises, in contrast to pre-planned maritime drills. While the Malabar exercise will be conducted later this year, it is always good to exercise with like-minded navies and exchange best opportunities whenever there is a chance,” said naval affairs expert Captain (retired) DK Sharma.

There was no official word from the Indian Navy on the exercise with the Nimitz carrier strike group.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are more than 1,200 km from the mainland. A significant volume of China’s oil imports passes through Malacca Strait, 350 km from these islands.

The nuclear-powered USS Nimitz, one of the largest warships on the planet, is returning from an operational deployment in South China Sea. A carrier strike group led by USS Ronald Reagan was part of the US drills in South China Sea.

The US deployment to South China Sea came after China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy conducted drills in the contested waters, provoking a sharp reaction from neighbouring countries and Washington. The US Navy has said its operations in South China Sea are designed to support a “free and open” Indo-Pacific.

The stage is also set for Australia to be part of the next Malabar naval exercise conducted by India with the US and Japan, as reported by Hindustan Times on July 17. The next edition of Malabar, already delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, is set to be held by the end of the year.

The formal invitation to Australia is expected to be extended after some time in view of delicate negotiations between India and China on disengagement and de-escalation to end their standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

China has also been wary of the Quadrilateral security dialogue or Quad that was revived in late 2017 by India, the US, Australia and Japan, and these suspicions have increased since the four countries upgraded the forum to the ministerial level last year.

A US Navy carrier strike group, led by USS Nimitz, is conducting basic maritime drills with Indian warships while on its way from South China Sea to deployment in the Middle East. Called “Passex” in naval parlance, the basic manoeuvre comes at a time when Indian and China are locked in a tense border confrontation in Ladakh, people familiar with the developments said on Monday.

The drills also come amidst mounting tensions in the South China Sea where the US Navy just conducted a major exercise involving USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan. “The Passex is nowhere near Andamans and Nicobar Islands. It is en route to the Gulf Region,” said a senior government official.

The Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy is currently carrying out drills near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The two navies will conduct a passage exercise near the islands to hone interoperability, the people said.

“A passage exercise is normally undertaken whenever an opportunity arises, in contrast to pre-planned maritime drills. While the Malabar exercise will be conducted later this year, it is always good to exercise with like-minded navies and exchange best opportunities whenever there is a chance,” said naval affairs expert Captain DK Sharma (retd).

There was no official word from the navy on the exercise with the Nimitz carrier strike group.

China complained to Japan early this month about its fishing boats moving in the vicinity of Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. Beijing also wanted Japan to cancel the resolution passed by the Ishigaki city assembly last month to change the name of the southern Japan area from Tonoshiro to Tonoshiro Senkaku. Japan, as expected, has told off China.

Beijing’s latest complaint to Tokyo falls into a pattern and is part of its tactic to push the envelope with its neighbours – one step at a time. In the East China Sea, the demarche was designed to build its claim over the archipelago that includes five uninhabited islands and three barren rocks spread across 7 sq km. It wasn’t just the presence of Japanese military around the islands east of the Chinese mainland that Beijing was going to object to but fishing boats too.

Also Read: Donald Trump spotted a pattern in China’s standoff with India. Here are 21 reasons

To be sure, China has been attempting to expand its territories over the last two decades but it has only been after the latest round of steps, or mis-steps that Beijing has been called out for bullying its neighbours, first by the United States. For instance, it has been laying the ground for the Ladakh adventure nearly 20 years ago.

That is when teams of Indian and Chinese officials, in an effort to understand each other’s perceptions about the Line of Actual Control and narrow the differences, produced maps of the western sector at the meeting of the expert group of the two countries on 17 June 2002. But the Chinese side declined to exchange these maps that would have formalised their claims and perception about the LAC. China hadn’t, for example, made claims over Gogra, or the fingers overlooking the Pangong lake.

Over the next 18 years, China has been attempting to nibble away territories that it claimed as its own, and the ones that it traditionally hadn’t. Like parts of Galwan valley that China has discovered can be strategically useful after India scaled up its border infrastructure and brought the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie close to the LAC.

Indian officials concede that there had been this lurking suspicion about China for years. But there was a belief within Indian diplomatic and military community that with close interaction over the years, the mindset of Han Chinese would change. “This has been a singular big mistake,” a senior official said.

But the Indian government isn’t the only one to have gone wrong with its assessment of China.

Also Read: US carrier Nimitz to conduct exercise with Indian Navy en route to Middle East

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has conceded that consecutive US administrations had gone horribly wrong with their policy that deepening ties with China could help democratize the country and the Trump administration was fixing this policy approach.

US Attorney General William Barr expanded on the administration’s approach last week, warning US business and academia that China means to co-opt, destroy and eventually replace them altogether.

The Trump administration has increasingly been focused on China bullying countries in the region, right from India and Japan to the smaller Southeast Asian countries.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea and the islands and reefs that dot it. As the world struggled with the virus that originated in its Wuhan, Beijing announced 2 districts to administer islands and reefs of Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands to strengthen its claim to sovereignty over the area.