Monthly Archives: August 2018

Nikhil Bhardwaj ribune News Service

Pall of gloom descended on Manupur village, in Khanna as an Indian Army soldier, Lance Naik Pritpal Singh, was martyred on Friday night during an anti-terrorist operation in the dense forests of Kulgam, Jammu and Kashmir. The operation has been ongoing since August 1.

The family was informed of the death by the Army at around 5 am on Saturday morning and was left in deep shock. The 29-year-old martyred soldier joined the Army in 2015. He had been married for only six months and leaves behind his elderly parents and wife, Manpreet Kaur. His uncle and aunt also retired from the military.

After hearing the news of her husband’s demise, Manpreet was left inconsolable. Everyone burst into tears seeing her hands still adorned with the customary wedding bangles and mehendi for the festive season. His father, while mourning the immense loss, said,” I salute my son’s martyrdom for the country. My son will never return now, but he sacrificed his life for nation.”

Pritpal Singh’s elder brother, Manpreet Singh, while talking to mediapersons, said they last spoke to him on Friday and Pritpal had apprised them of the ongoing shootout with the terrorists. “He had told us that the Indian Army would soon eliminate the terrorists,” he said.

Pritpal’s wife shared that Pritpal was supposed to come home at the end of the month as they had planned to celebrate all the upcoming festivals together, including their first Diwali as a married couple, but those dreams were left shattered.

Pritpal’s brother Harpreet Singh said they were three brothers. The whole family was dependent on Pritpal. “My brother had joined the Army as soon as he passed class XII in 2015. We had told him that it is Rakhi and that he should come home to celebrate but he had said he will come on Diwali,” he said, adding that, “I am proud of my brother. He sacrificed his life for the country. The Indian Army should eliminate the terrorists.”

Pritpal Singh’s cremation is expected to be performed at Manupur village on Sunday.

Operation completes 9 days; CM Mann announces Rs 1 crore ex gratia each

Two Army men were killed and two others injured in an encounter with terrorists in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district, the ongoing operation entering its ninth day on Saturday and being one of the longest in Jammu and Kashmir in recent years.

The martyrs belonged to Punjab and have been identified as Lance Naik Pritpal Singh of Manupur village in Khanna and Sepoy Harminder Singh of Badinpur village in Mandi Gobindgarh.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann expressed grief over the deaths and announced an honorarium of Rs 1 crore each to the families of the deceased soldiers. “We salute the spirit and bravery of the martyrs. As per our government’s promise, an honorarium of Rs 1 crore each will be provided to their families,” CM Mann posted on X. J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah visited the Chinar Corps headquarters at Badamibagh in Srinagar and laid a wreath in the honour of the martyred soldiers. The anti-terror operation started last week in a dense forest of Akhal. Eight Army personnel have so far been injured, with the security forces making all-out efforts to eliminate the hiding terrorists, who appear to be highly trained and well-equipped. The area has been experiencing heavy firing for several days, including during night hours.

Of late, militants have shifted their bases to jungles and high-altitude areas due to the heavy deployment of security forces in various parts of J&K in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 civilians were killed.

The body of one militant has been retrieved from the gunfight site while another terrorist is also believed to have been killed. Intelligence inputs had suggested that at least five militants were holed up in the forest when the operation started.

With the operation getting prolonged, top security officials, including J&K Director General of Police Nalin Prabhat and General Officer Commanding of the 15 Corps, Lt Gen Prashant Srivastava, have visited the site. The Army has deployed elite commandos and is taking the assistance of drones and helicopters to locate the militants.

Army’s Srinagar-based Chinar Corps wrote on X, “Chinar Corps honours the supreme sacrifice of the bravehearts. Their courage and dedication will forever inspire us. The Army expresses deepest condolences and stands in solidarity with the bereaved families.”

Army’s Northern Commander Lt Gen Pratik Sharma also paid homage to the martyrs. “The Northern Command stands firm with the bereaved families in this hour of grief,” the Army said.

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the Army and the IAF together have a requirement of over 450 light helicopters, with the former requiring around 250 of them.

Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is looking at getting 200 helicopters for the Army and the Indian Air Force, which will replace the six-decade-old Cheetah and Chetak copters.

The MoD on Friday issued a request for information (RFI) – the first step in the tendering process. The plan is to buy 120 of these reconnaissance and surveillance helicopters for the aviation corps of the Army while the remaining 80 for the IAF.

This RFI, allows helicopters manufacturers to partner with Indian companies and bid for the project, but the copter will need to be made in India.

The MoD aims to identify probable vendors, including an Indian company, that will form a joint venture with the original equipment manufacturer, that could be an Indian or a foreign company. A meeting with the vendors is scheduled in a month.

Crucially, the MoD has not restricted its search to single engine copters and is open to twin-engined ones too. The copters should be able to perform the following roles by day and night, do reconnaissance and surveillance, carry a small body of troops or quick reaction teams for special missions; carry internal and external loads in support of ground operations, do scouting duties in conjunction with attack helicopters.

Since the usage will be in extreme climates like the hot deserts or the perma-frost of Siachen, the MoD has asked for specific load carrying capacities when operating in Siachen or areas above 16,000 feet altitude. So far, the Army and IAF use the single-engine Cheetah and Chetak copters and also the twin-engined advanced light helicopters (ALH) in the mountains.

The Chetak is based on the French designed Aérospatiale Alouette III and was inducted in 1962 and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited began manufacturing them under licence in 1965. The Cheetah is derived from the Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama and entered service in 1976.

A demand to retire the ageing choppers has gained traction in recent years in the wake of a string of accidents, including several fatal ones.

Of the 246 Cheetah/Chetak helicopters, the Indian Army Aviation Corps currently operates around 190 choppers, of which nearly 30 are in maintenance. While the Army and the IAF together have a requirement of over 450 light helicopters, the Army will need around 250 of them.

The Army is also looking at buying 80 indigenous light utility helicopters from HAL, however, the delivery is delayed because of some technical issues with the aircraft’s autopilot system. The LUH completed the high-altitude trials in 2020 and received the initial operational clearance in 2021.

Pilot has died rescuing trekkers stranded in treacherous conditions in Lahaul-Spiti region of Himachal after a cloudburst

Over a quarter of a century after an IAF pilot was killed in a helicopter crash while rescuing German trekkers in the Himalayas, his widow has been granted a liberalised family pension, which is typically given to battle casualties, after judicial intervention by the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT).

In August 1999, Flight Lieutenant SK Pandey, a skilled helicopter pilot, was on a delicate mission at the request of the civilian administration to rescue German trekkers stranded in treacherous conditions in the Lahaul-Spiti region of Himachal Pradesh after a cloudburst.

The liberalised family pension, which is higher than an ordinary pension, was refused to the widow, Rakhi Pandey, by the authorities, despite the fact that the widow of the helicopter’s co-pilot had already been granted a liberalised pension based on similar orders by the AFT in 2023.

Two years after her husband’s demise, the central government in 2001 implemented the recommendations of the Fifth Central Pay Commission, wherein widows whose husbands had died in such missions were now entitled to a liberalised pension.

The orders were made applicable to all cases retrospectively, with effect from January 1996. However, the requisite pension was still not released to the officer’s widow due to the absence of a “battle casualty” certificate from the Air Force authorities.

After a long struggle, the Air Force authorities finally issued the “battle casualty” certificate to the widow, stating that she was now entitled to the liberalised pension, with effect from 1999.

The certificate issued by the Air Force was, however, rejected by the Joint Controller of Defence Accounts, who observed that the widow’s case did not fall within the policy for the grant of a liberalised pension.

Holding her fully entitled to the liberalised pension, the AFT’s Chandigarh Bench, comprising Justice Umesh Chandra Sharma and Air Marshal Manavendra Singh, held that the government circular of 2001, which was made applicable from January 1996, fully covered the circumstances of the late pilot’s death for the grant of the liberalised pension.

The AFT, based on law settled earlier by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, also observed that once there was a positive declaration by the Air Force authorities stating that the widow was covered under the rules for the grant of such benefits, then the Accounts Branch had no right to override such an opinion of the Air Force and that the job of the Accounts Branch was only to calculate the pension and release it, and not to overrule the findings of the competent authorities.

Crucially, the MoD has not restricted its search to single-engine copters and is open to twin-engine ones too

Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is looking for getting 200 helicopters for the Army and the Indian Air Force. These will be replacements for the six-decade-old Cheetah and Chetak copters.

The MoD on Friday issued a Request for Information (RFI) – the first step in the tendering process. The plan is to buy 120 of these reconnaissance and surveillance helicopters for the aviation corps of the Indian Army while the remaining 80 will be for the Indian Air Force.

This RFI allows helicopters manufacturers to partner with Indian companies and bid for the project but the copters will need to be made in India.

The MoD aims to identify probable vendors including an Indian company that will form a joint venture with the original equipment manufacturer. The manufacturer could be Indian or foreign company. A meeting with the vendors is scheduled in a month.

Crucially, the MoD has not restricted its search to single-engine copters and is open to twin-engine ones too. The copters should be able to perform the following roles by day and night; do reconnaissance and surveillance; carry a small body of troops or quick reaction teams for special missions; carry internal and external loads in support of ground operations; do scouting duties in conjunction with attack helicopters.Since the usage will be in extreme climates like the hot deserts or the perma-frost of Siachen, the MoD has asked for specific load-carrying capacities when operating in Siachen or areas above 16,000 feet altitude. So far the Army and IAF  use, in the mountains,  the single engine Cheetah and Chetak copters or the twin-engined advanced light helicopters (ALH).

The need to get these 200 copters is due to the ageing fleet of Cheetah and Chetak.

The Chetak is based on the French-designed Aérospatiale Alouette-III and was inducted in 1962 and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited began manufacturing them under licence in 1965. The

Single-engine Cheetah is derived from the Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama and entered service in 1976.

A demand to retire the ageing choppers has gained traction in recent years in the wake of a string of accidents, including several fatal ones.

Out of 246 Cheetah/Chetak helicopters produced, the Indian Army Aviation Corps currently operates around 190 choppers, out of which nearly 30 are in maintenance. While the Army and the IAF together have a requirement of over 450 light helicopters, the Army will need around 250 of them.

The Army is also planning to buy 80 indigenous Light Utility Helicopters from the HAL. However, the delivery is delayed because of some technical issues with the aircraft’s autopilot system. The LUH completed the high-altitude trials in 2020 and received the Initial Operational Clearance in 2021.

The committee pointed out that recently there has been a paradigm shift in the technology used in fighting a war

Vijay Mohan Tribune News Service

Underscoring India’s success in Operation Sindoor — undertaken in May as retribution to the terrorist attack in Pahalgam — Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence stressed the need for urgent military modernisation to meet the wide spectrum of threats that have emerged in the contemporary battlespace.

In May, the Indian Armed Forces had carried out precision strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan as well as successfully targeted several key Pakistani airbases and air defence and other military sites while effectively neutralising a series of attacks by enemy drones and missiles along the western borders.

“The committee notes that the country’s recent military operation is a testimony to the Armed Forces’ mounting prowess in both conventional and modern warfare,” the committee said in an apparent reference to Operation Sindoor in its report tabled in Parliament today.

“The committee is cognizant that a paradigm shift in the strategy of warfare is taking place in contemporary theatre of war where non-conventional means such as non-kinetic warfare, cyber warfare, cognitive warfare, etc are being increasingly employed,” the report observed.

“In this regard, the committee recommends that urgent and coordinated efforts by all the stakeholders i.e. the Ministry of Defence, Services, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Defence Public Sector Undertakings etc may be made to achieve excellence in hybrid and modern war tactics,” the report stressed.

The committee called upon the stakeholders in the defence sector to work in mission mode, while also leveraging technological innovations, human resource, strategy and tactics to further bolster our operational preparedness in all dimensions of warfare.

The committee also pointed out that conventional wars were earlier fought in only three modes – land, air and water — but recently there has been a paradigm shift in the technology used in fighting a war.

“There have been innovations and experiments in western countries, and the use of drones, space, cyberspace, kinetic and non-kinetic format etc has enveloped the sphere of war, which can be fought from very distant locations through a remote controlled mode,” the committee observed.

The Ministry of Defence said that information, cyber and digital media have acquired considerable significance. The Armed Forces are also correspondingly becoming increasingly dependent on digital assets. These digital assets, however, are vulnerable to deliberate/unintended disruption/infection, which may have an effect on the operational performance of the Armed Forces and needs to be guarded against.