Last week, two explosives-laden drones had crashed into the Indian Air Force station at Jammu airport

Security personnel stand guard outside the Air Force Station after two explosions reported in the technical area in the early hours of June 27, 2021. PTI

Srinagar, July 4 

A week after a drone attack at an Air Force base in Jammu, authorities in Srinagar on Sunday banned the sale, possession, and use of such unmanned aerial vehicles in the city.

Earlier, authorities in border districts of Rajouri and Kathua in the Jammu region had put curbs on the use of drones and other UAVs in the wake of the terror attack last Sunday.

Two explosives-laden drones had crashed into the Indian Air Force station at Jammu airport and there were other suspicious sightings of UAVs, triggering a security alert.

In an order, Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Aijaz directed those having drone cameras or other similar kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles to deposit them in local police stations.

The order, however, exempted government departments using drones for mapping, surveys, and surveillance in agricultural, environmental conservation, and disaster mitigation sectors but directed them to inform the local police station before using them.

The administration cautioned that any violation of the guidelines will attract punitive action, and directed police to implement the restrictions in letter and spirit.

The order to ban the use of drones came after the recommendations of the city’s police chief.

“The decentralised airspace access has to be regulated in view of recent episodes of misuse of drones posing threat to security infrastructure as reported by media/other reliable sources,” the order said.

To “secure the aerial space” near the vital installations and highly populated areas, it is “imperative” to discontinue the use of drones in all social and cultural gatherings to eliminate any risk of injury to the life and damage of property, the order said.

“Keeping in view the security situation, apart from concerns of breach of privacy, nuisance and trespass, it is extremely dangerous to let unmanned aerial vehicles wander around in the skies within the territorial jurisdiction of district Srinagar,” it said.

The district magistrate imposed “restrictions/ban on the storage, sale/ possession, use and transport of drones/similar kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles in the city”.

“Persons already having the drone cameras/ similar kind of unmanned aerial vehicles in their possession shall ground the same in the local police stations under proper receipt,” the order said. — PTISHARE ARTICLE

File photo of the Rafale fighter jet. PTI

New Delhi, July 3

The Congress may be feeling vindicated at the appointment of a French judge to lead a judicial investigation into alleged “corruption and favouritism” in the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal with India, but the Supreme Court has already put the controversy to rest.

Also read: Congress, BJP trade allegations over Rafale deal as France opens judicial probe

France begins judicial probe into Rafale deal with India: French mediahttps://05cec9292c971b809d983bfd8aa0d8af.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

In its December 14, 2018, verdict, a three-judge Bench led by then-CJI Ranjan Gogoi had dismissed a petition seeking probe into the India-France deal for the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets, holding there was no commercial favouritism and occasion to “really doubt the decision-making process” warranting setting aside of the contract.

On November 14, 2019, it had dismissed petitions seeking review of its verdict, saying they were without any merit.

Alleging irregularities in the deal, petitioners Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha, Prashant Bhushan and others had demanded registration of an FIR and a court-monitored probe into it.

However, the Bench—which also included Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph—gave a clean chit to the deal on all three contentious issues—the decision-making process, comparative pricing and choice of Indian offset partners (IOP), saying “We find no reason for any intervention by this court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircraft by the Indian Government

On decision-making process, it had concluded, “We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the court.”

On comparative pricing, the top court had said, “It is certainly not the job of this court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present. We say no more as the material has to be kept in a confidential domain.”https://05cec9292c971b809d983bfd8aa0d8af.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

On offset partner, it had said, “We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian Government, as the option to choose the IOP does not rest with the Indian Government.”

The Congress has been demanding a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee into the deal.

However, the top court had said, “Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this court, especially in such matters.”

The Bench—which had summoned four top IAF officers during the hearing to explain various aspects of the deal—had said that empowerment of defence forces with adequate technology and material support was a “matter of vital importance”

The process of acquisition had started in 2001 and India was to purchase 126 twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), but the contract negotiations reached a stalemate and the Request for Proposal (RFP) compliance was finally withdrawn in June 2015. During the protracted process India’s adversaries modernised their combat capabilities, the government contended.

It was in this background that India signed an agreement with France in September 2016 for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. It has better deliverables, it had said, adding norms prescribed under Defence Procurement Policy-2013 were followed.

“The need for the aircraft is not in doubt. The quality of the aircraft is not in question. It is also a fact that the long negotiations for procurement of 126 MMRCAs have not produced any result, and merely conjecturing that the initial RFP could have resulted in a contract is of no use,” the court had said.

Allegations comes two days after MEA asked Pak to investigate the incident of a drone hovering over the Indian High Commission premises in Islamabad on June 26

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Residents remove a gate from their damaged house at the site of a car bombing, in Lahore. AP/PTI file

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 4

India’s ties with Pakistan are poised for a dip after its Prime Minister Imran Khan green-lighted a campaign alleging Indian hand in blast outside Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Saeed’s house on June 23.

“I instructed my team to brief the nation on findings of Johar Town, Lahore blast investigation today. I appreciate the diligence & speed of Punjab Police’s Counter Terrorism Dept (CTD) in unearthing the evidence and commend the excellent coordination of all our civil & military intelligence agencies,” said Imran Khan in a social media post.

The Pakistan PM directly blamed New Delhi for the blast that killed three and injured over 20. “The planning and financing of this heinous terror attack has links to Indian sponsorship of terrorism against Pakistan. The global community must mobilise international institutions against this rogue behavior,” he stated.

Shortly thereafter, Pakistan’s NSA Moeed Yusuf, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry and Punjab IG Inam Ghani addressed the media. “Other than the call records, we have the data on bank account in India used by handlers to transfer money for the bomb blast,” said Yusuf while alleging that a third country was used to transfer money to the orchestrators of the blast.

Ghani said the CTD investigated the matter within 16 hours and arrested a “Peter Paul David” who arranged a vehicle for the blast with a tampered engine plate. ‘Eid Gul’, an Afghan-origin man, carried out multiple reconnaissances in the targeted area and later he and his wife imbedded 20 kg of explosives in the vehicle.

The same police officer had said a weeks ago that 10 Pakistani citizens — men and women — who were involved and who executed the blast had been arrested.

Pakistan’s allegations comes two days after the MEA lodged a strong protest with Pakistan Foreign Ministry and asked it to investigate the incident of a drone hovering over the Indian High Commission premises in Islamabad on June 26. The incident came a day before explosives-laden drones were used to carry out an attack on the Jammu Air Force station on June 27, which preliminary investigations suggest had the imprint of Hafiz Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Toiba.

New Delhi, July 2

Around 30 lakh retired soldiers will now be moved to a new pension payment system which promises a seamless ‘end-to end online facilitation’ — from the initiation of pension to its disbursement.

Called the ‘System for Pension Administration-Raskha (SPARSH)’, it will be implemented in phases with the first one from August 1, says the instructions issued by the office of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions), under the Ministry of Defence.

The project envisages ‘right payment to the right pensioner at the right time’.

The existing system to sanction and disburse pensions process has several drawbacks. The three armed forces services don’t even have a common form needed for paperwork to initiate pension for a retiring personnel. There is manual intervention in processing the pension and the lacks centralised information for addressing queries of the pensioners.

SPARSH intends to include all processes and functionalities needed for processing the pension. — TNS

Navdeep Singh@SinghNavdeep·15 Dec 2020

Today & over the past few months I’ve received queries on whether deaths caused due to COVID would result in grant of Special Family Pension which is higher than Ordinary Family Pension. The answer is YES since any death occurring due to any infection +

Chief of the Air Staff, R.K.S. Bhadauria, countered this, saying the IAf is not just a supporting arm but has a wider role Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria. (ANI)

New Delhi: The military turf war over the “theaterisation” of the armed forces heated up on Friday. As the Air Force expressed concern on the proposals, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Bipin Rawat on Friday called the Indian Air Force “a supporting arm” of the military, specifically the Army, just like the artillery and engineering services. However, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria, countered this, saying the Air Force is not just a supporting arm but has a wider role.

“The Air Force is required to provide support to ground forces. Do not forget that the Air Force continues to remain a supporting arm to the armed forces, just as the artillery supports or engineers support the combat units in the Army,” said Gen. Rawat. “They will be a supporting arm. But they have a charter. They have an air defence charter and supporting the ground forces in times of operations. This is the basic charter which they have to understand,” he said.

Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria said “it is not a supporting role alone” that the Air Force plays. “Air power has a huge role to play in any integrated battle area. It is not an issue of support alone, and there are a whole lot of things that go into any air plan that is made,” the IAF Chief added.

Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria said the integrated theatre command is a much more complex matter. “There are issues in terms of some of the options that are being discussed,” he said, adding: “We must get it right. It is the most important reform that has an impact on warfighting.”

“There are many issues when you set up to integrate theatre commands and many of those issues should be upfront looked at very clearly. We should clearly understand how we are going to structure it. Sort out the principle and sort out important issues and thereafter implement it,” he added.

The defence ministry has set up a high-level committee which includes the three vice-chiefs of the armed forces and the Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff to thrash out differences on theatre commands among the three services and other ministries. The different theatre commands will integrate the assets of the Army, Air Force and Navy in a domain under one commander to give punitive response to any external threat.

The IAF, however, has concerns over dividing its limited number of aircraft among different commands. Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria said that every service has its own doctrine and has the best knowledge of how to employ the capabilities and capacities to get the desired results. “Whenever we have a system, which is integrated we must look at that entire doctrine. The abilities of the services must be brought in, and it must be a synergised result,” he said.

Tags: bipin rawat, chief marshal, r.k.s. bhadauria, air force, supporting arm, marshal bhadauria, drone attack, military

Location: India, Delhi, New Delhi

While the Indian Navy has prudently anticipated the need for essential weapon systems well in time and rapidly obtained them, the Army has been riddled with confusion over its procurement policy
by Rahul Bedi
New Delhi: Of India’s three armed services, the Indian Navy (IN), is undoubtedly the most efficient in its timely procurement of assorted defensive and offensive weaponry and systems to counter critical proliferating enemy threats, like the armed mini-drone attack on the Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Jammu, late last month. Anticipating threats to its surface platforms and shore installations from similar drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) the Indian Navy had, in timeliness ordered Israeli SMASH 2000 Plus computerised fire control and electro-optic sight systems in December 2020, to augment the accuracy of rifles against small invading unmanned aircraft systems or UAS.
The tender with Israel’s Smart Shooter, for an undisclosed number of these systems – each costing around Rs 10 lakh – was signed following around six months of negotiations, a record time frame in India’s defence procurement procedure that normally takes years to conclude. The delivery of the SMASH-2000 systems, which integrate target acquisition and tracking algorithms with image processing software, to pinpoint and hit their objective at ranges of up to 120m, began earlier this year, and is continuing. Initially, the systems would be installed on Kalashnikov Ak-47 assault rifles that are currently in the Indian Navy service, only to be transferred later onto licence-built Ak-203 rifles expected to eventually replace them.
“The Indian Navy had anticipated the incipient danger from armed drones and undertook timely procurement of systems in advance to be able to neutralise them, when needed,” said a senior Ministry of Defence (MoD) official. Surprisingly, negotiations between Smart Shooter and the Indian Army (IA) for SMASH-2000 systems were ongoing despite it periodically facing direct danger from weaponised drones, quadcopters and even UAVs, the official said, declining to be named.
The SMASH anti-drone systems are not the Indian Navy’s sole acquisition to have been executed swiftly in comparison to interminable delays in the Indian Army procurements to meet urgent operational requirements. MoD officials who have dealt with all three services over years, said that the Indian Navy had the most ‘practical, pragmatic, result-oriented and least adversarial approach to equipment acquisitions and problem resolving’. It was also the least hierarchical and more relaxed in its dealings with the ministry, guided entirely by its objectives.
In 2016, for instance, the Indian Navy had acquired 177 sniper rifles, completing the entire import process in under 24 months. In stark contrast, the Indian Army had initiated its demand for similar rifles in 2009; but over years it had floated, scrapped and then re-issued several tenders for them without concluding the purchase till now.
Delayed Weapons Procurement Process
Presently, the Indian Army’s critical sniper rifle procurement, intended to replace the Soviet-era Dragonov SVD model that first entered Army service in the mid-1980s, has been further postponed after the rifles were placed on the MoD’s proscribed list of 209 military platforms, equipment and related systems, which are to be progressively sourced indigenously.
But in the interim, in what has become routine practice of executing ‘intermediate’ equipment purchases, the Indian Army inducted 24 .338 Scorpio TGT sniper rifles from Victrix Armaments of Italy and M95 rifles from Baretta of the US in February 2019. This followed sustained sniping by the Pakistan Army across the Line of control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, which continues and remains a persistent danger and threat.
In enviable deviation from Army’s behaviour with regard to materiel acquisitions, the Indian Navy displayed quiet and dogged efficiency in technically evaluating, testing and eventually, in late 2016, acquiring 177 Sako TIKKA T3 TAC 7.62x51mm bolt action sniper rifles, selected over UK’s Steel Core Designs Thunderbolt SC-76 model, for its Marine Commando Special Forces (SF). The overall $2.98 million contract also included 100,000 rounds of 7.62x51mm match grade ammunition.
The Indian Navy’s detailed timeline in summarily finalising this purchase too is revealing.
Its request for proposal (RFP), or tender, for these rifles was issued in early 2014, followed by user trials at a firing range in New Delhi’s outskirts in late 2015. Beretta was shortlisted around March that year and price negotiations launched thereafter, which concluded successfully a few weeks later.
“Once again, the Indian Navy’s sniper rifle buy was a conscious and pre-emptive procurement for rapidly emerging threats locally and overseas, following the force’s increased anti-piracy deployments in the Gulf of Aden and off India’s eastern and western seaboards,” said the MoD official, cited above. It had prudently anticipated the need for these essential weapon systems well in time and rapidly obtained them, he added.
The Indian Army’s bid, on the other hand, to acquire sniper rifles, needed more urgently on the LoC, is riddled with incompetence. In 2009 it floated a tender for around 1,100 sniper rifles under the fast track procedure (FTP) which mandates a 12-month long deadline to conclude procurements. Incredulously, the RFP failed in mandating accuracy standards at a minimum 800m range and absurdly required the rifles to be fitted with a bayonet. It was totally incomprehensible to the handful of vendors to determine why the rifle, purposed for employment at a distance of over 800m, needed a bayonet that is normally used by infantry soldiers in close combat. The unclear RFP also failed to differentiate between a bolt action or semi-automatic sniper rifle model – a critical QR (qualitative requirement) determinant for sniper rifles. Expectedly, the RFP was cancelled after at least one round of trial firings in the respective vendors’ countries including Israel and a tender re-issued in September 2018 for 5,719 sniper rifles and 10.2 million rounds. This too was scrapped ten months later, in July 2019, after four leading overseas rival vendors failed to meet the Indian Army’s unrealistic qualitative requirements (QRs) and delivery schedules.
Unrealistic Demands
This RFP required one of four shortlisted original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of sniper rifles from amongst PT Pindad (Indonesia), ROSONBORONEXPORT (Russia), Barrett and MSA Global (USA), to transfer technology for the .339 Lapua Magnum ammunition to India’s state-owned Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and indigenous private sector companies to locally manufacture an additional 4.6 million rounds.
Industry officials at the time said it was ‘commercially unviable by all and any standards’, for any manufacturer of such specialised ammunition to transfer technology for merely 4.6 million rounds. The proposed delivery schedule for the 5,719 rifles, which were being acquired under the ‘Buy and Make’ category of the MoD’s defence procurement procedure, 2016, too posed logistic problems. It required the shortlisted OEM to deliver the first lot of 707 rifles within six months of the contract being signed, and the remaining 4,472 supplied in batches of 1,200 units each over the next 30 months.
“No sniper rifle manufacturer produces such large numbers in the time stipulated in the RFP,” said a senior official from one of the OEM’s competing for the tender. The Indian Army fails to realise that such expert weaponry is not mass produced on an industrial scale, he added, declining to be named. Of the intended 5,719 rifles, 5,507 were for the Indian Army’s special forces and the remaining 212 for the Indian Air Force’s Garud Commando force.
Official sources told The Wire that the ‘amplified’ sniper rifle ammunition QRs and impractical delivery targets were of a piece with numerous other Indian Army RFPs that had been routinely criticised by successive parliamentary defence committees, as impracticable. The April 2012 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, for example, revealed that as many as 41 of the Indian Army’s tenders for diverse equipment had been withdrawn or terminated due to ‘implausible’ QRs. Former defence minister Manohar Parrikar too endorsed this proclivity on the Indian military’s part in 2016, when he stated that its QRs for equipment and platforms appeared to be straight out of “Marvel comic books”. Many of the technologies demanded and conditions stipulated for varied equipment were “absurd and unrealistic,” the late defence minister had stated.
Indian Navy’s Utilitarian Approach
“The Indian Navy’s approach to platform, equipment and assorted systems procurement is practical, pragmatic and realistic,” said Amit Cowshish, former MoD advisor on acquisitions. They do not have an adversarial and hierarchical approach to procurements and are interested only in securing their goals within existing financial and administrative realities, he added.
The Indian Navy had also taken the lead in introducing the concept of military platform and equipment leasing that is increasingly finding favour now with both the Army and the Air Force.
It leased the 5,000-ton Project 670A Skat (Charlie-I) – class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) INS Chakra – from Russia for three years till 1991, when such concepts were not even a concept in the country’s military. Thereafter, it once more leased the more advanced Project 971 ‘Akula’(Schuka-B) – class SSN for ten years in 2012, which too was called Chakra. This boat returned to Russia in June, some ten months before its deadline expired, because of recurring maintenance problems. Chakra will now be replaced in 2025 with a more advanced Russian SSN of the same class, following yet another lease concluded in March 2019 for $3 billion via an inter-governmental agreement or IGA. Indian Navy sources said the new SSN is also likely to be named Chakra. And during the end of 2020, the Indian Navy leased two non-weaponised General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) Sea Guardian medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAVs from the US to monitor the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), once more ushering in a new and utilitarian concept of equipment induction by India’s military. Leased initially for a year, the UAVs were delivered to INS Rajali in Tamil Nadu, 77 km west of Chennai, and were the first piece of military equipment to be thus hired under the new provisions incorporated in the Defence Acquisition Procedure-2020 (DAP-2020) within weeks of its release last September.
Thereafter, the face-off in Ladakh with China’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, prompted the Indian Army to lease four Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Heron UAVs in February under ‘emergency powers’ granted by the Union government to the military last summer after the Himalayan showdown erupted. Industry sources further said the three-year lease period for these UAVs could be extended by another 24 months. The Indian Navy was also first off the mark in issuing a request for information (RFI) in April 2021 regarding its planned lease of 24 twin-engine utility helicopters and related ground support equipment (GSE) for five years to implement assorted tasks, aiming to meet critical rotorcraft shortages for deployment on frontline warships. The immediate and practical reason behind this move was the continual postponement by the MoD of the 2017 program to indigenously source 111 twin-engine Naval Utility Helicopters (NUHs) to replace the legacy licence-built Chetak (Aerospatiale Alouette III) that were indicted into service in the 1960s.
Consequently, the Indian Air Force has followed suit by opening talks with France to lease one Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft for training purposes. The planned lease of the aircraft, which would be operated by the Indian Air Force, but maintained by the French Air Force, is likely to be succeeded by India leasing five additional A330 MRTTs to augment the reach and combat capability of its combat aircraft fleet.
In conclusion, the Indian Navy had, over the years, successfully ‘customised’ its procurement procedures to meet its capital and revenue needs and relatively optimised its operational efficiency. “The Indian Navy’s mantra is to pragmatically and expediently come to terms with the MoD’s complex procurement procedures, whilst simultaneously remaining focused on its objectives,” said Cowshish. It appears to operationalise its experience at sea to navigate even the MoD’s choppy waters, he added.
Perhaps, the Army and the Air Force could look beyond themselves and try and emulate the Navy’s successes, despite its shrinking annual outlay.

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 1

The faculty and staff of Dr BR Ambedkar State Institute of Medical Sciences, Mohali, today extended their felicitations to the medical team from Western Command that had set up facilities at the institute to deal with cases of black fungus among civilians.

The team, comprising about 25 battlefield nursing assistants (BFNAs), had been deployed at the institute for the past 35 days. With the decrease in the number of cases and relative lessening of the burden on the healthcare system, BFNAs will now resume their duties at their respective Army establishments.

Dr Bhavneet Bharti, Director-Principal of the institute, lauded the role of the BFNAs and thanked the Western Command for extending its support in dealing with the turbulent situation. Col JS Sandhu, Director, Civil Military Affairs, Western Command, said the Army would provide all possible assistance to civilian hospitals if the need arose.

Jammu, July 1

Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General YK Joshi on Thursday named a gate at the Udhampur military station in J&K as ‘Nowshera’ to honour the valiant soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice in the Battle of Naushera in 1948 to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country, a defence spokesman said.

The Army Commander named one of the important gates of the Udhampur military station as ‘Nowshera’ and unveiled it. He paid rich tributes to the soldiers. — PTI

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A house damaged in the encounter at Rajpora, Pulwama. PTI

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 2

Security forces today neutralised five Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants, including district commander Nishaz Lone, in an encounter in the Hanjin Rajpora area of Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir. One Army jawan was also killed in the exchange of fire.

Vijay Kumar, IGP, Kashmir, said, “District commander of proscribed terror outfit LeT Nishaz Lone and a Pakistani terrorist have been neutralised in the ongoing Pulwama encounter. A total of five terrorists have been killed in the gunfight.”

Following the information about the presence of militants in Rajora, the security forces, in a joint operation, launched a cordon and search operation, officials involved in the operation said.

“When the security forces were moving towards the targeted house after sealing all exit points, militants hiding inside opened indiscriminate fire,” an officer said, adding that subsequently it turned into an encounter.

He said in the initial exchange of fire, an Army soldier, Havaldar Kashi Rao, was injured. He later succumbed to his injuries at a hospital in the Valley. Soon after, reinforcements were rushed to the area and five militants were killed.

Kumar said the operation was a “big success” for the forces.

Ex-filtration bid in Baramulla, 4 held

Srinagar: The police on Friday arrested four youths trying to cross the LoC to enter PoK in Baramulla district. “An ex-filtration bid has been foiled with the arrest of four youths, who were heading towards the LoC to enter PoK via Gowhallan sector in Uri,” a police spokesman said. Incriminating material, including knives, was recovered from their possession, he said. A case has been registered against them. PTI