Photo for representation. File photo

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 10

The UT Administration will allot civil and electrical works to be carried out for the Indian Air Force (IAF) Heritage Centre at Government Press Building in Sector 18 this week.

During a review meeting held today under the chairmanship of UT Adviser Dharam Pal regarding the setting up of the centre, officials of the Engineering Department said the tender for the civil and electrical works to be done at the site was opened on October 7 and work would be allotted this week.

The Adviser directed the officials to work in close coordination and get the works completed without delay so that the centre could be inaugurated at the earliest.

Vinod P Kavle, Secretary Culture, outlined the duties and responsibilities of IAF and administration in setting up the centre, which is a joint initiative.

The meeting was attended by officers of the IAF and UT Administration.

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, October 11

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, October 11

The Cold War (1945-1991) had just ended. India, was looking for a fighter jet to add muscle to the Indian Air Force flee

Russian President Boris Yeltsin, in 1994, offered the Sukhoi-30 that was test flown in 1989 and first produced only in 1996 after India agreed to buy it. The Government led by PV Narasimha Rao (PM June 1991–May 1996) agreed to some very unusual terms.

The General Election had been announced, the model code of conduct was enforced, when Rao decided in early part of 1996.

Rao, also held the portfolio of Defence Minister, and okayed for paying a $ 350 million advance to the Russian manufacturers, Sukhoi Aviation Corporation, all without signing a contract or the IAF pilots getting to test fly the plane

The advance was at the request of Boris Yeltsin as Russia was facing an economic crisis. Former IAS officer and Private Secretary to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Shakti Sinha recounts the issue of the advance in his book “Vajpayee — The Years That Changed India”.

“The advance for the military aircraft had initially seemed like a scam. But Vajpayee wanted to know more and it transpired that the advance was needed to keep the manufacturing unit ( in Russia) afloat”.

Rao and the Congress was voted out of power in 1996. Vajpayee was sworn in Prime Minister, his government lasted just 13 days – May 16- June 1, 1996 and had no time to take a call on the Sukhoi deal.

HD Deva Gowda followed Vajpayee as Prime Minister and Mulayam Singh Yadav took over as Defence Minister on June 1, 1996, was in the saddle till March 19, 1998.

Mulayam Singh, put aside his years of anti-congress and anti-BJP stance, and took upon himself to not let it turn it into another Bofors-like controversy.

Mulayam built a consensus, he arranged a briefing for senior opposition leaders including Vajpayee and BJP member Jaswant Singh (a former Army officer and later Defence Minister). The circumstances of the contract and needs of the IAF were explained. Russia was then the sole major supplier of weapons, any step to stop the Sukhoi -deal would have been disastrous

On November 30 1996 – some eight-ten months after Rao okayed the advance to Russia – the Ministry of Defence inked a deal with the Russians for ‘development and production’ of eight Sukhoi-30Ks and 32 Sukhoi-30MKIs for the Indian Air Force.

Weeks after that Mulayam Singh informed the Parliament about the successful Sukhoi deal, Opposition benches complimented him.

By July 1997, all eight Su-30Ks were delivered at the IAF base at Lohegaon, Pune. Three years later the contract was signed to licence produce the Sukhoi-30 MKI in India. India has some 265 of the jets in service. The latest upgrade to the jet includes the ability to fire a 500 kms range BrahMos Missile.

Photo for representation only.

The naval headquarters order Board of Inquiry

PTI

New Delhi, October 12

A MiG-29K fighter jet of the Indian Navy crashed off the Goa coast on Wednesday morning after developing a technical malfunction.

The pilot ejected safely, the Navy said.

The naval headquarters ordered a Board of Inquiry (BoI) into the incident.

“An MiG-29K, on a routine sortie over Goa coast, developed a technical malfunction while returning to the base. The pilot ejected safely and has been recovered in a swift search and rescue operation,” the Navy said in a brief statement.

“The pilot is reported to be in stable condition. The BoI has been ordered to investigate the cause of the incident,” it said.

The MiG-29K is an all-weather carrier-based multirole fighter aircraft developed by Russian aerospace company Mikoyan.

Army Aviation Corps has authorised 12 Brigadiers but only one Major General and one Lieutenant General

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 12

In a judgement that has implications for appointments to the top posts in the army’s ‘minor corps’, the Armed Forces Tribunal on Wednesday directed the Ministry of Defence to consider a retired Brigadier for promotion to the rank of Major General in the Army Aviation Corps.

The Tribunal’s bench comprising Justice Rajendra Menon and Lt Gen PM Hariz directed the ministry and the army to consider the officer, Brig Sudhir Nagpal for promotion within two months and grant him all consequential benefits including pay and allowances for the period he was kept out of the service.

According to the petition filed by the officer, he had been due for consideration for promotion to the rank of Major General in October 2021 against an existing vacancy at this rank in the Army Aviation Corps, but the same was denied to him on the pretext that said vacancy had already been filled up by a junior batch officer belonging to the General Cadre.

The officer, of the 1987 batch, retired in February 2022 in the rank of Brigadier even as his petition was pending before the Tribunal, which in its interim order had ruled that his retirement would be provisional and subject to final orders passed by it.

After his retirement the ministry released an additional vacancy of Major General to the Aviation Corps but the petitioner was still not considered, instead another junior batch officer was considered, for promotion against said vacancy.

 “A list of arms and services which were scheduled to be considered for promotion by No.1 Selection Board was published in July 2021, but Army Aviation Corps was not included in the list. No reasons were mentioned for excluding this corps in the letter despite the fact that a vacancy for Major General already existed in the corps since June 21, 2022,” Col Indra Sen Singh (retd), counsel for the petitioner said.

The petition mentions that the officer was “informally” informed that Aviation Corps was not considered because another officer of the 1989 batch, had already been considered by the board in May 2020 and promoted in February 2021 against the said vacancy of Major General, that had actually accrued in June 2021.

“It is baffling that if a vacancy in Aviation Corps was indeed going to be available in February 2021 then why was the petitioner, who was already holding the rank of substantive Brigadier and fully eligible, not considered for promotion to Major General in May 2020,” Col Sen averred.

Army Aviation Corps has authorised 12 Brigadiers but only one Major General and one Lieutenant General. Being a minor corps, where the overall strength of officers and men is very less as compared to other arms, it works on a functional requirement where the vacancies are released as per the actual requirement whenever a post falls vacant.

The petitioner also contended that as per policy, general cadre officers are debarred from tenanting corps specific appointments of their parent arm or service, while appointments of Major General in a corps specific stream are tenable only by officers of that specific arm or service.

My father was 19 in 1947 and was witness to the carnage in his village near Lahore. My grandfather, who was a popular patwari, and several relatives died. The terrifying scenes stay with my father

Photo for representational purpose only. – File photo

Brig Manjit Singh (Retd)

MY grandfather, Dargah Singh, was a patwari in Lahore district before Partition. The family stayed in Sadpar, a Labana village located along the Ravi, 8 km from Lahore. Most of the Labanas used to serve in the army or government departments. My father, Maj Jagat Singh, did his BA from SD College, Lahore, and completed his final year after Partition from SD College, Ambala Cantt. He used to go on foot from Sadpar to Lahore everyday crossing Jhugian Khasrian village, made famous by Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, whose father, Kishan Singh Sandhu, had shifted here from Lyallpur in 1916. Bhagat Singh was admitted in fifth class at DAV High School, Lahore.

Sadpar was located east of the Ravi. The Labanas were mostly traders and were financially well-off. In 1947, Muslim groups coming from the Lahore side were attacking Sikh and Hindu villages. Anticipating an attack, my grandfather organised a few boats and urged the villagers to cross over to Dhamke, a Labana village located west of the Ravi. As sufficient boats were not available, he stayed back to organise the evacuation. He held a firm view, being a popular patwari, that no one will harm him. When 60-70 per cent of the people had crossed over, including my father, a Mohajir group attacked Sadpur and killed all those present. Among the dead were my grandfather, my father’s Nanaji (Hav Bhag Singh) and a few other relatives. Some of them jumped into the river. About 30 people were burnt alive while hiding in a room near the boat point.

Unaware of the tragedy, on my father’s request, a British army officer along with a few soldiers took him to the village for evacuating my grandfather and other villagers. He cried once he reached and saw the carnage. The bodies were either burnt or dismembered. It was a terrible experience.

Like our family, people from Lahore and various Labana villages which were located east of the Ravi were expecting merger with India, therefore they migrated at the last moment. On the personal intervention of my maternal grandfather, Capt Sher Singh, who served in the British army, the families of Sadpar were evacuated to Mian Mir Cantonment, Lahore, where the Punjab Regiment was made responsible for their welfare, security and migration to Amritsar.

It was a difficult task to shift the families as most of the convoys were being ambushed. A convoy of military vehicles was organised on the pretext of shifting Guru Granth Sahib from the unit gurdwara at Mian Mir to Amritsar.

On arrival at Amritsar, all families were shifted to Khalsa College for a few days, and later to Hide Market in small, dingy rooms smelling of rotting carcasses and animal bones.

My father was lucky as his brother-in-law, Dr Pritam Singh, was a professor in Glancy Medical College, Amritsar (renamed as Government Medical College). He hired a house. Most of the refugees later moved to Kurukshetra and Karnal camps by train

The Labanas from various villages of Gujarat district migrated to J&K. Some were later shifted by train to the Karnal and Ambala camps. Some settled down around Begowal as Sant Prem Singh, a highly respected religious leader of the Labanas, was allotted a house as well as land there. On his request, some of the Labanas who had settled in Ambala, Karnal and Kurukshetra shifted to Begowal and surrounding areas in Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur.

After reaching the refugee camp at Kurukshetra, my father did community service for three months to get a certificate which was mandatory for seeking admission in BA final. He took a loan of Rs 450 from the SD College management for the fee and books. He would work in the evening on a monthly salary to run his household as well as return the loan. My father was commissioned in the Army Education Corps in 1961 and retired as a Major. He visited Pakistan with jathas a number of times but never went back to his village. He had seen the holocaust at the age of 19. The horrid scenes stay with him. 

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, October 10

India expressed its deep concern at the escalation of the conflict as a furious Russia retaliated for the bombing of the Crimean bridge with a barrage of lethal strikes against at least 10 cities in every region of Ukraine on Monday amid reports that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office as well several power plants were also hit. At least eight people were reportedly killed in the capital Kyiv alone.

Russia basically targeted civilian areas and energy infrastructure as air raid sirens sounded in every region of Ukraine, except Crimea for four hours.

A day earlier, retaliation was almost certain after Putin called the attack on the Kerch Bridge a terrorist act by Ukrainian special services.

In response to media queries on the escalation of conflict, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, “We reiterate that escalation of hostilities is in no one’s interest. We urge immediate cessation of hostilities and the urgent return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue. India stands ready to support all such efforts aimed at de-escalation.”

“India has consistently maintained since the beginning of the conflict that the global order is anchored in the principles of the UN Charter, international law and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states,” he added.

Putin said the Russian military launched precision weapons from the air, sea and ground to target key energy and military command facilities and warned that Moscow’s response will be “tough and proportionate to the level of threats” if Ukraine launched more such attacks.

Some strikes in downtown Kyiv in the morning hit the symbolic heart of the capital. For the next four hours, missiles rained down on a total of 10 cities, including Kharkiv, Lviv, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi and Zhytomyr knocking out electricity and water supply in many of them. Three of the cruise missiles launched from Russian ships in the Black Sea crossed Moldova’s airspace.

The Ukrainian President in a video address said the targets were civilian areas and energy facilities in 10 cities. The General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said 75 missiles were fired against Ukrainian targets, with 41 of them neutralised by air defences.

Zelenskyy said on his Telegram account that Russia is “trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth”.

The West will chalk out a response when the G-7 bloc meets via video conference on Tuesday which Zelenskyy will address.

Ukrainian Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba broke off his Africa tour and headed back to Ukraine while all schools in Ukraine switched to online classes until the end of the week

Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had ordered troops to deploy alongside Russian fighters near Ukraine due to a clear threat to Minsk from Kyiv and its backers in the West. “Strikes on the territory of Belarus are not just being discussed in Ukraine today, but are also being planned,” he said.

Debris is seen on a street after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on October 10, 2022. Reuters

Reuters

Kyiv, October 10

Russia launched its most widespread air strikes since the start of the Ukraine war on Monday, raining cruise missiles on busy cities during rush hour and knocking out power and heat, in what President Vladimir Putin called revenge for a blown up bridge.

Explosions were reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east. Ukrainian officials said at least 10 people were killed and scores injured, and swathes of the country left without power.

Thousands of residents raced to bomb shelters as air raid sirens rang out through the day. The barrage of dozens of cruise missiles fired from air, land and sea was the biggest wave of air strikes to hit locations away from the front line, at least since the initial volleys on the war’s first day, February 24

“The Kyiv regime, with its actions, has put itself on the same level as international terrorist organisations. With the most odious groups. To leave such acts without a response is simply impossible,” Putin said in a televised address.

The Russian leader said he had ordered “massive” long range strikes and he threatened more strikes in future if Ukraine hits Russian territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the attacks were deliberately timed to kill people, as well as to knock out Ukraine’s power grid. His prime minister said 11 major infrastructure targets were hit in eight regions, leaving swaths of the country with no electricity, water or heat.

“They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth,” Zelenskiy said.

The body of a man in jeans lay in a street at a major Kyiv intersection, surrounded by flaming cars. In a park, a soldier cut through the clothes of a woman who lay in the grass to try to treat her wounds. Two other women were bleeding nearby.

‘They are trying to destroy us’

The Kremlin was humiliated two days ago when a blast damaged Europe’s longest bridge, which it had built after it seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014. Ukraine, which views the bridge as a military target sustaining Russia’s war effort, celebrated the blast without officially claiming responsibility.

With troops suffering weeks of setbacks on the battlefield, Russian authorities have been facing the first sustained public criticism at home of the war, with commentators on state television demanding ever tougher measures.

Ben Hodges, a former commander of US army forces in Europe, said the scale of the strikes suggested Russia’s plan to escalate may have been drawn up before the bridge was attacked.

Monday’s strikes tore a huge crater next to a children’s playground in one of central Kyiv’s busiest parks. The remains of an apparent missile were buried, smoking in the mud.

More volleys of missiles struck the capital again later in the morning. Pedestrians huddled for shelter at the entrance of Metro stations and inside parking garages.

Germany said a building housing its consulate in Kyiv had been hit in Monday’s strike, though it had not been used since the war started on Feb. 24. The European Union condemned Monday’s “barbaric and cowardly attacks” on Ukraine, among a chorus of denunciations from Western countries.

By mid-morning, Ukraine’s defence ministry said Russia had fired 81 cruise missiles, and Ukraine’s air defences had shot down 43 of them. Russia’s defence ministry said it had hit all its intended targets.

Security camera footage showed shrapnel and flames engulfing a glass-bottomed footbridge across a wooded valley in the city centre, one of Kyiv’s most popular tourist sites. One pedestrian could be seen running from the blast. Reuters later saw a huge crater below the bridge, damaged but still standing.

Zelenskiy filmed a video message on a mobile phone on an empty central Kyiv street. He said the strikes had two main targets: energy infrastructure and people.

“Such a time and such targets were specially chosen to cause as much damage as possible,” he said.

Prime Minister Denys Shmygal promised to restore utilities as quickly as possible. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “Putin is a terrorist who talks with missiles.” Olena Somyk, 41, sheltered with her 6-year-old daughter, Daria, in an underground garage where hundreds of other people waited for the all-clear. She had reached Kyiv earlier in the war after fleeing through Russia and across Europe from the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson.

“Really, I think they did this because they are bastards,” said Somyk. Putin, she said, “is a small angry man, so we don’t know what more to expect”.

Belarus escalation

In another sign of possible escalation, Putin’s closest ally, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, said on Monday he had ordered troops to deploy jointly with Russian forces near Ukraine, which he accused of planning attacks on Belarus with its Western backers.

“Their owners are pushing them to start a war against Belarus to drag us there,” he said, citing no evidence.

Lukashenko allowed Belarus to be used as a staging ground for Russia early in the war but has not sent his troops to fight.

Within Russia, the strikes were cheered by hawks. Ramzan Kadyrov, the staunchly pro-Kremlin leader of Russia’s Chechnya region who had demanded in recent days that military commanders be sacked, hailed Monday’s attacks: “Now I am 100% satisfied with how the special military operation is being conducted.” “We warned you Zelensky, that Russia hasn’t even got started yet, so stop complaining … and run! Run away without looking back to the West,” he wrote.

Russia has faced major setbacks on the battlefield since the start of September, with Ukrainian forces bursting through front lines and recapturing territory. Putin responded to the losses by ordering a mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of reservists, proclaiming the annexation of occupied territory and threatening repeatedly to use nuclear weapons.

Gopeshwar, October 10

Portals of the famous Sikh shrine Hemkund Sahib in the Garhwal Himalayas were closed on Monday for the winter season.

Defying severe chill caused by heavy snowfall in the area for the past a few days, a large number of devotees thronged the shrine to witness its ceremonial closure, senior manager of the gurdwara Sardar Seva Singh said.

More than 1,400 devotees were in presence on the occasion.

Sikh volunteers kept removing fresh snow from the gurdwara premises for the convenience of devotees as the rituals receding the closure started early in the morning, he said.

“Shabd kirtan” and “antim ardas” for this year were held before its doors were shut for devotees.

Nearly 2.25 lakh devotees visited the shrine this season.

Indian Army aims to procure 10 numbers of Runway Independent (RWI) Remotely Piloted Aircraft System under the ‘Buy (Indian)’ in accordance within the provisions of DAP-2020.
Runway Independent (RWI) Remotely Piloted Aircraft System is ideal for a dynamic sensor-shooter linkage, reducing fixed-wing launch and recovery challenges while freeing troops from stationary runway constraints.
System Configuration:
The Tac RPAS (RWI) system should consist of the following subsystems:
(a) Aerial Vehicle (AV)(b) Sensor package/ Payloads (Day and Night)(c) Ground Control Station (GCS) to include power source/generator(d) Remote Video Terminals (RVT)(e) Inter and intra communication system(f) Facility to transmit imagery in real time/ near real time to the end user
Other Key Features
Geo reference should be based on Indian Military Grid Reference (Defence Series Maps (DSM)) and the equipment display console should be able to simultaneously read out 10 figure grid reference as well as Geographical coordinates in degree-minutes-seconds format. The RPAS should be capable of Vertical Take Off Landing (VTOL) in the Launch and Recovery category.
The Operating Altitude should be up to 4000 M (13,000ft) above Mean Sea Level with an altitude ceiling of up to 5000 M (16,000 ft) above Mean Sea Level. The endurance is required to be 4 hours or more with maximum All Up Weight (AUW) from take-off to landing.

RDE (DRDO) has successfully developed a 10MJ (mega joules) EM Railgun indigenously. Further development of up to 100MJ will be carried out at a dedicated infrastructure facility ‘CEMaLT’ which is currently under construction as per a report published in DRDO Newsletter publication.

Railguns have the experimentally proven capability to accelerate masses of several kilograms to velocities in excess of 2 km/s. For military payloads railguns are attractive accelerators, as they have the capability to reach velocities in excess of what explosively driven guns can achieve. In the military domain masses from 0.1 kg up to several kilograms need to be accelerated to velocities in between 2 km/s to 3 km/s.

High-speed Photograph for velocity measurement realisation

Projectile accelerates in a conventional gun barrel due to propellant burning in the gun chamber. But there is a limit to how much propellant can be filled in the chamber of a gun. A gun requires a larger chamber volume to accommodate a higher amount of propellant resulting reduction in pressure. The maximum velocity with which the gases can accelerate the projectiles is a function of the speed of sound in the gas.

The gun propulsion techniques in the conventional weapon is summarised in Figure below.

Latest technology in the name of EM propulsion is being explored in which EM energy due to Lorentz force is used to propel a projectile. This type of propulsion system has no such theoretical limit of velocity of the medium unlike the gases in chemical energy-based propulsion; as electromagnetic phenomena travels with the speed of light.

Using programmable pulsed power technology, a railgun based on 10 MJ capacitor bank has been successfully designed, developed, and installed at ARDE, Pune. Hypervelocity propulsion of >2000 m/s has been achieved by using this facility. Using the 10 MJ EM railgun, a series of dynamic firing trials from a fixed firing stand was conducted for experimental evaluation and system performance. These experiments has helped to characterize EM railgun for different bore sizes up from 12 mm to 45 mm for projectiles of 80 gm, 120 gm, 250 gm, and 500 gm.

Based on the know-how gained after the successful completion of Technology Demonstration (TD) project, the configuration and design methodology can be extended to achieve higher speed, range, and
lethality in futuristic rail gun.