Monthly Archives: August 2018

Trials were aimed to validate enhanced capability of already integrated Derby Beyond Visual Range AAM on Tejas, a DRDO statement says

The test firing in Goa on Tuesday completed a series of missile trials to validate its performance under extremely challenging scenarios. Photo: Twitter/DRDO_India

Bengaluru, April 28

India’s indigenous Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, has added the fifth generation Python-5 Air-to-Air Missile (AAM) to its air-to-air weapons capability.

Trials were also aimed to validate enhanced capability of already integrated Derby Beyond Visual Range (BVR) AAM on Tejas, a DRDO statement said on Wednesday.

The test firing in Goa on Tuesday completed a series of missile trials to validate its performance under extremely challenging scenarios, it said.https://c426715202f202f76b41301d39202efb.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

“Derby missile achieved direct hit on a high-speed manoeuvring aerial target and the Python missiles also achieved 100 per cent hits, thereby validating their complete capability. The trials met all their planned objectives,” the statement said.

Prior to these trials, extensive missile carriage flight tests were conducted in Bengaluru to assess integration of the missile with aircraft systems on board the Tejas, like Avionics, Fire-control radar, Missile Weapon Delivery System and the Flight Control System.

In Goa, after successful separation trials, live launch of the missile on a ‘Banshee’ target was carried out.

Python-5 missile live firing was conducted to validate target engagement from all aspects as well as beyond visual ranges. In all the live firings, missile hit the aerial target.

The missiles were fired from Tejas aircraft of Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) flown by Indian Air Force (IAF) Test pilots belonging to National Flight Test Centre (NFTC). PTI

The Brahmaputra is the longest river in Tibet and its valley in southern Tibet is the world’s deepest

Beijing, April 28

Melting glaciers and barrier lakes could threaten China’s plan to build the world’s biggest hydroelectric dam over the Brahmaputra river in Tibet close to the Arunachal Pradesh border, a media report said on Wednesday.

The proposed dam which one Chinese official said has “no parallel in history” will be built in Medog county, where the Brahmaputra Grand Canyon is located. Medog is the last county in Tibet which is located close to the Arunachal Pradesh border.

The plan to build the mega-dam, which is part of China’s 14th five-year plan beginning from this year, was approved by China’s Parliament, the National People’s Congress in March this year.

But the engineers are concerned about the threats posed by landslides and barrier lakes to the dam, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

“But an icy obstacle could put a halt to much of the plan. In 2018, a landslide caused by a melting glacier blocked the Yarlung Tsangpo – the upper stream of the Brahmaputra river – at the Sedongpu Basin in Milin county,” it said.

It formed a lake containing about 600 million cubic metres of water. With the river spilling over the top at present, the dam could collapse at any time, it said.

The Sedongpu lake sits just a few dozen kilometres upstream from the planned construction site of the super hydropower plant. With so much water hanging overhead, no construction workers can move in to clear the ground, it said.

To build the big dam, they must get rid of the small dam formed by the landslide first, the report said.

India and Bangladesh, the lower riparian states, have raised concerns over China’s plan to build the massive dam on Brahmaputra river. But China has downplayed such anxieties saying it would keep their interests in mind.h

As a lower riparian state with considerable established user rights to the waters of the trans-border rivers, the Indian government has consistently conveyed its views and concerns to the Chinese authorities and has urged them to ensure that the interests of downstream states are not harmed by any activities in upstream areas.

Brahmaputra river is known as Yarlung Zangbo in Tibet.

The Brahmaputra is the longest river in Tibet and its valley in southern Tibet is the world’s deepest with a 7,000-metre (23,000-foot) drop from the highest mountain peak to the lowest basin.

China plans to build a hydropower plant in the valley with electricity generation capacity reaching 70 gigawatts, about three times that of the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s largest built by the country, the report said.https://8b8994065ccaba94072b9026c62602d5.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Several teams of scientists and engineers have flown to Sedongpu in recent years, including some of the nation’s top experts in civil engineering, glacier study and landslide prevention. They collected a large amount of data on the site using drones and other advanced equipment and were asked by authorities to come up with a solution after finishing their assessment, it said.

“The situation is very difficult. There is not an immediate solution yet,” Xing Aiguo, a professor of civil engineering at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University who was involved in one of the studies told the Post.

The experts could not find a way to strengthen the landslide dam or remove it safely. Worse still, they found similar disasters would likely happen again in the same area, thanks to climate change.

“The area is large and there are many glaciers,” Xing said. Even if there is a method, treating such a harsh natural landscape with engineering methods could be technically challenging and costly, he said.

A quarter of the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau have disappeared since the 1970s, and two-thirds of the remaining will be gone by the end of the century, the Post report quoted an estimate by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Studies have found that increased meltwater and rising temperatures could make the “roof of the world” more habitable with greater crop yields and advancing tree lines, but the risk of natural disasters, including flooding and landslides, also increased.

And ice could turn a landslide into something more destructive. At Sedongpu, for instance, the icy debris travelled more than 10km with a top speed of 72km/h according to an estimate by Tibet autonomous region’s geological environmental monitoring station.

The icy material also loosened the landslide dam and made it more prone to collapse. The sheer drop in elevation means even a relatively small amount of water could cause serious destruction downstream, it said.

Liu Chuanzheng, a government researcher with the Consultative Centre of Geohazard Mitigation under the Ministry of Natural Resources in Beijing, said human activity in the Sedongpu area “should be avoided altogether”.

“The development and utilisation of natural resources and energy in the Yarlung Tsangpo river must fully consider the situation of avalanches and debris flows in the Sedongpu valley,” he said in an official report about the landslide published in the journal Geology in China in 2019.

Some Chinese scientists have proposed that instead of building a super dam, a 16km-long tunnel could be dug through one of the high mountains in the Yarlung Tsangpo valley.

The water could be directed into the tunnel to push electricity generating turbines. This scheme would reduce the power output to 50GW – or about twice that of the Three Gorges Dam – but reduce the risk of damage from landslides or other natural disasters. PTI

Full-time residential programme will mentor and guide students for a period of 12 months for entrance examinations of various medical and engineering colleges spread across the country

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 26

As part of the Indian Army’s initiative to secure a better future for Ladakhi youth, the army’s Leh-based Corps on Monday signed an MoU with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and National Integrity and Educational Development Organisation, (NIEDO) to help students to prepare for competitive examinations.

The project, Ladakh Ignited Minds: A Centre of Excellence and Wellness, is a full-time residential programme to mentor and guide students for a period of twelve months for entrance examinations of various medical and engineering colleges spread across the country. 

The programme being run under the aegis of the Indian Army will be executed by Kanpur-based NIEDO. The Army will oversee the overall operations that includes administration and logistics with requisite funding support from HPCL.

NIEDO will not only mentor and guide the students but will also provide value-based education, soft skill training, critical life competencies, develop leadership capabilities and personality development.

Chandigarh, April 26

Amendment to the Arms Act, reducing the number of firearms possessed by a person from three to two, has come under the judicial scanner with the Punjab and Haryana High Court putting the Union of India on notice.

The notice to the Union of India, through the Ministry of Home Affairs, was issued by Justices Ritu Bahri and Meenakshi I Mehta came on a petition filed by advocate Tejinder Pal Singh Tung through senior advocate GS Bal. Taking up the matter, the Bench also fixed the case for further hearing in July first week.

Appearing before the Bench through videoconferencing, Bal submitted that the amendment was being challenged only to the extent it restricted the possession of three firearms to two as it was patently illegal, arbitrary and against the mandatory provisions of Articles 14 and 300-A of the Constitution. He submitted one firearm was required to be surrendered without providing any guidelines or purpose by the virtue of the impugned amendment. — TNS

The 100-bed facility will come up at the International Students Hostel in Panjab University’s Sector 25 campus

Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 27

The Army is moving a field hospital from Himachal Pradesh to Chandigarh after the UT Administration requested the Western Command for setting up a COVID-19 care centre in view of the spike in infection cases.

The 100-bed facility will come up at the International Students Hostel in Panjab University’s Sector 25 campus.

The Army will begin moving in the equipment and staff tomorrow and the facility is expected to be fully functional in five days.

According to Col Jasdeep Sandhu, Director Civil-Military Affairs at Headquarters Western Command, the Army will be providing medicines, oxygen, ambulances and other supplies for the centre, besides doctors, para-medical and support staff.

Specialist medical cover will also be provided by the Command Hospital in Chandimandir.

In addition, the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Research and Education, Sector 12, and the Government Multi-Speciality Hospital, Sector 16, would also be available for any support. Civilian doctors would also be deputed for liaison.

A meeting was held by the Governor of Punjab and Administrator of Chandigarh, VP Singh Badnore, with officers from Headquarters Western Command today, where modalities for setting up the centre were discussed.

The International Students Hostel was selected by the Army after a survey of several sites as it has over a 100 air-conditioned rooms and open space adjacent to it. The Chandigarh Administration had earlier earmarked it as a COVID care centre on payment basis.

The Army is also moving a couple of field hospitals from different locations to other cities in the region, besides working with the civilian administration to make oxygen generation plants functional.

Centre tells SII, Bharat Biotech to slash rates

The Centre today said the risk of runaway spread of Covid infection was real unless people began practising Covid-appropriate behaviour now and states resorted to tough local lockdown measures to curb steep surge. File photo

New Delhi, April 26

The Centre today said the risk of runaway spread of Covid infection was real unless people began practising Covid-appropriate behaviour now and states resorted to tough local lockdown measures to curb steep surge.

After India logged 3,52,991 daily cases in a new world record for the fifth day, the Health Ministry said most states had crossed previous infection peaks by several times. The Centre had last night advised lockdown in cities and districts reporting over 10 per cent positivity for a week and more than 60 per cent occupancy of oxygen or ICU beds.

The advisory suggested at least 14-day strict containment in such areas. Karnataka today announced a two-week lockdown from Tuesday and Punjab also announced restrictions – night curfew on weekdays and weekend curfew.

The Ministry of Health has sought people’s participation in the Covid fight. It warned, “People must wear masks, maintain physical distancing and hand hygiene. Failure to do so may entail grave consequences. Without social distancing one person can infect 406 persons in a month; with 50 per cent reduction in exposure, 15 persons will be infected; and with 75 per cent reduction in exposure, 2.5 persons will be infected.”

The focus is on states with more than 1 lakh active cases eac h— Maharashtra (7,00,207), UP (2,97,616), Karnataka (2,62,181), Kerala (2,19,221), Rajasthan (1,36,702), Chhattisgarh (1,23,835), Gujarat (1,15,006), TN (1,05,180).

The country saw 2,812 deaths in a day. — TNS

The order will apply to 51 identified high pressure Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme polyclinics across the country to tide over the current Covid crisis

Photo for representation only. Photo courtesy: echs.gov.in

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 27

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved the hiring of additional contractual staff over and above the authorisation, the Ministry of Defence spokeperosn said on Tuesday morning.

The order will apply to 51 identified high pressure Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) polyclinics across the country to tide over the current Covid crisis.  Several ECHS are located across Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, home to a sizeable number of retired servicemen.

The contractual staff, including one each of medical officer, nursing assistant, pharmacist, driver and chowkidar for identified ECHS polyclinics, will be hired through station headquarters for night duty, beyond normal working hours, for a period of three months.

The high-pressure ECHS polyclinics indentified for the hiring are Hoshiarpur, Mohali, Chandigarh, Chandimandir, Ambala, Noida, Greater Noida, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Meerut, Jammu, New Delhi (Lodhi Road), Jalandhar, Gurugram, Gurugram (Sohana Rd), Ghaziabad (Hindon), Pathankot, Ludhiana, Ropar, Tarn Taran/Patti, Yol Cantt, Delhi Cantt, Patiala, Palampur and Dehradun.

Other ECHS clinics on the list are at Kanpur, Allahabad, Jodhpur, Lucknow, Bengaluru (Urban), Kotputli, Secunderabad, Agra, Pune, Trivandrum, Kolkata, Danapur (Patna), Khadki (Pune), Bareilly, Kolhapur, South Pune (Lohegaon), Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, Guntur, Barrackpore, Chennai, Gorakhpur, Bhopal, Kochi, Vellore and Ranchi.

The move will ensure availability of immediate medical attention even during night hours to acute cases in these areas to the veterans and their dependents.

Two months after the first step towards full withdrawal of troops at the Line of Actual Control, troops are still locked in confrontation in at least two areas. There is a growing belief that India withdrew too early and New Delhi has remained silent on Beijing’s offer for help with its Covid-19 surge
by Kunal Purohit
Two months after New Delhi and Beijing completed the disengagement of troops from the hotly-contested Pangong Tso lake on their disputed border, there is a growing belief in India that its troops withdrew too early and what was meant to set the stage for a fuller pull-out by both sides at other friction points is unlikely to happen any time soon.
The Indian government has made no official comment, but local media reports have quoted military and government sources as saying that Chinese forces were “reluctant” to restore the status quo that existed in at least two other areas before the stand-off that began last May, and that Beijing had indicated New Delhi “should be happy” with what has been achieved so far.
Such statements were made after senior military commanders from both countries met on April 9 to discuss the disengagement process at Hot Springs and Gogra – located along their undemarcated border known as the Line of Actual Control between India’s Ladakh region and the Chinese-administered Aksai Chin.
As part of the early-February agreement for both sides to withdraw troops, tanks and artillery from the glacial lake, Indian forces had given up its positions on the strategically-located Kailash range in the region.
“It appears India was in a hurry to declare ‘victory’ by making China ‘withdraw’ from the finger areas [of Pangong Tso],” said BR Deepak, a professor of Chinese and China Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
According to Deepak, Beijing’s goal “was to vacate India from the Kailash range” to wrest back the tactical advantage that New Delhi had, but it did so by “changing the status quo” on the northern banks of the Pangong Tso.
The northern banks have finger-like spurs of the heights overlooking the lake which have been numbered from one to eight. India claims territories eastward from Finger 1 up to Finger 8, while Beijing claims territory westwards up to Finger 4.
In the current agreement, both sides have vacated the area between Finger 4 and Finger 8 and have decided that neither side would patrol that area.
The agreement had led to hopes for a similar resolution to the troop stand-off at Hot Springs and Gogra. But, with no resolution in sight two months later, Deepak said this had escalated the crisis. “Hot Springs and Gogra Heights where there was no friction before have become new friction points as China has refused to withdraw from these positions,” he said.
Deepak Sinha, a retired Indian Army brigadier, said he believed India’s early withdrawal could have lasting consequences.
“The Chinese are not going anywhere, it is obvious,” he said. “We will never be able to go back to the idea that the border dispute can be settled later, while the two countries cooperate on other issues.”
According to a release by the Indian embassy in Beijing on Tuesday, comments made by India’s ambassador to China Vikram Misri several days after the April 9 meeting suggested New Delhi was unwilling to look past the current stalemate.
“We have also seen a tendency in some quarters to sweep this situation under the carpet and characterise it as just a minor issue and a matter of perspective,” Misri told a meeting of Chinese in Guangzhou, according to the embassy.
Misri added that this was “inadvisable” and would take the two countries “further away from a sustained solution”.
Beijing, however, indicated it wanted New Delhi to keep the border stand-off at “an appropriate position”.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Wednesday said he hoped India would “meet China halfway” and “focus on the bigger picture of long-term development of bilateral relations”. China on Friday offered to help India battle an alarming surge in coronavirus cases that has seen its hospital system buckle from a lack of medical supplies, including oxygen.
India is also facing a shortage of raw materials used to make vaccines due to export curbs by the United States and Europe.
New Delhi has not yet responded to Beijing’s offer, even as it has put out an international appeal for help, with oxygen tanks sent to India from Singapore on Saturday.
STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE
One reason behind the prolonged stand-off at Hot Springs and Gogra could be the strategic significance these spots carry for both the countries, analysts said.
These friction points lie close to the Kongka Pass, a high-altitude mountain pass that China claims is the boundary between the two countries. India claims the boundary to be further east of this pass.
“This pass lies close to strategically-crucial deposits of zinc in Chinese territory and hence, occupying Hot Springs and Gogra might be one way of pre-emptively blocking off India’s access to those areas,” said retired Lieutenant General Rakesh Sharma, who in 2013 served in the region as the commander of the Fire and Fury Corps.
Sharma was referring to the Huoshaoyun deposit, said to be the site of one of Asia’s largest zinc-lead deposits, according to Metal Bulletin, a portal that tracks global metal and mining-related information.
The pass is also crucial due to its proximity to the sensitive Chinese provinces of Xinjiang and Tibet, both which have traditionally posed security concerns for Beijing.
According to Sharma, making it tougher for New Delhi is its poor access to its forward-locations in Hot Springs and Gogra.
“Both these posts are accessible to India only through the Marsimik La pass, which is shut for half the year due to the harsh winter conditions. Hence, this is not a strong post for India,” said Sharma.
Based on his knowledge of the area and military operations in the region, Sharma said New Delhi needed a “pragmatic approach” to deal with the Chinese refusal to disengage from these friction points.
“The truth is, if China has denied have denied India patrolling rights here, India has also denied the China the patrolling rights at many points as per Beijing’s 1959 LAC claim line,” he said, pointing to a border alignment that was first spelt out by late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in a letter to then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959, which New Delhi continues to reject.
“Which is why, we need pragmatism and not strategies like delinking,” Sharma said.
Sharma suggested that the two sides could create a “buffer-zone” where both sides patrol in a regulated manner and the claims of both sides “remain intact”.
“If we want to do business, we will have to come to a sector-wise compromise,” he said.
Deepak, the New Delhi academic, said India’s options were limited and that the stalemate was likely to persist, with ongoing bilateral ties likely to be shaped by India’s post-coronavirus recovery.
“It will depend on how quickly India regains its economic growth trajectory by making its social and economic drivers strong,” he said. “Until then, China will not be sensitive to India’s (concerns).”

Lt Gen. Mohanty also emphasised on the use of best technologies to enhance India’s military capabilities to confront various challenges, including along the western and northern borders
He said a frontline commander in the thick of a battle cannot afford to contact multiple service providers.
India needs to have a national logistics network, combining the civilian and military resources, to effectively deal with any crisis situation in the future, Vice Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General CP Mohanty said on Saturday. In an address at a seminar, Lt Gen. Mohanty said a national logistics policy is being deliberated upon as the country cannot afford to separate national logistics from the military logistics networks.
“My vision of operation logistics in a few lines — it has to be completely networked to connect the frontline soldiers and all service providers with a click of a button,” he said.
“To do so, it has to be modelled on telemarketing on the lines of Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket etc.,” the Vice Chief of Army Staff added.
Lt Gen. Mohanty also emphasised on the use of best technologies to enhance India’s military capabilities to confront various challenges, including along the western and northern borders.
“As we look to enhance the capabilities of our armed forces to meet the dual challenges on our western and northern borders, we are deeply conscious of the fact that it is with technology alone that we can prepare ourselves for all scenarios,” he said.
The Army Vice Chief said the incorporation of automation to reduce inventory, artificial intelligence for better predictive maintenance, block chain for more efficient logistics supply chain management, fuel cells for energy management are some of the issues that are being looked at.
He said a frontline commander in the thick of a battle cannot afford to contact multiple service providers.
“All services such as food, fuel, warlike stores, weapons, ammunition, casualty evacuation, medical services, repair and recovery of vehicles and equipment have to be integrated into one large web,” Lt Gen. Mohanty said.
“It would involve multiple warehousing facilities, transportation by land, air and water, workshops, hospitals with round-the-clock transparency,” he added.
Lt Gen. Mohanty said the requirement of nurturing jointness and integration, particularly in the evolution of joint logistics structures, has been accorded priority.
“We, as a nation, cannot afford to divorce national logistics from military logistics — especially when a war or any major crisis in effect is a national effort,” he said.
Inevitable, the armed forces has to achieve this and show the way to overall logistics in our country.