IAF Chronicles - A side view of whats going on behind the closed doors in New Delhi

[A Person]

So far Rafale is stuck at 36 and both the opposition as well as Modi's rivals in the BJP are trying their damnedest to make buying more a toxic issue.

The IAF may want stuff, but they don't realize that defense of the country takes second place to political games.

 

[Bon Plan]

So far Rafale is stuck at 36 and both the opposition as well as Modi's rivals in the BJP are trying their damnedest to make buying more a toxic issue.

The IAF may want stuff, but they don't realize that defense of the country takes second place to political games.

Time plays for Rafale.

To avoid a break in the rafale delivery, India has another 1.5 years to ink a new deal, as the last of the 36 first Rafale will be delivered in september 2022

September 2022 - 3 years (lead time to built from the beginning a plane) = September 2019. Until that date, no hurry.

 

[Bali78]

Why would

Unfortunately, thats one of the very few examples we always boast about.

And if we dont accept our weakness, we will never get better.

Teachers clarified my doubts too in India but hardly anyone taught use to use the knowledge in real life. I was a cbse student.

First one needs to correctly identify what is his/her weakness and you my friend, is shooting at the wrong tree.

Education was never our weakness. India pathetically failed when it comes utilizing it's human resources and providing right environment for innovation.
When provided proper environment, Indians from the same education system, outsmarted every other race.

Celebrating/encouraging our success is as important as addressing our weaknesses!!

 

[randomradio]

So far Rafale is stuck at 36 and both the opposition as well as Modi's rivals in the BJP are trying their damnedest to make buying more a toxic issue.

The IAF may want stuff, but they don't realize that defense of the country takes second place to political games.

No, the political infighting happening right now does not really damage India's security. The fact is any kind of deal can be done only after the elections, so they will all continue their rhetoric until election time. Post-election, it won't matter, the Opposition will go silent as long as Modi wins again.

In case Modi doesn't win, Rahul Gandhi will sign the same deal for 36 more Rafales. He will talk about how his new deal is even better than what Modi signed because it won't have the base infrastructure and most of the customization costs.

 

[randomradio]

Why would

Unfortunately, thats one of the very few examples we always boast about.

And if we dont accept our weakness, we will never get better.

Teachers clarified my doubts too in India but hardly anyone taught use to use the knowledge in real life. I was a cbse student.

Science and engineering are highly professional fields. You learn on the job. And then you have to specialize. Everything you learn may seem important, but has no relevance when you actually hit the floor and start working.

It doesn't matter what kind of essay I make an engineer write, he needs to get his hands dirty if he has to learn and only the working environment provides that. That is the case in India. In western countries, their schools and universities work with many times more funds than we do, so we cannot provide the same kind of learning environment right now.

The Chinese higher education system is as bad as ours, perhaps worse, but look at the strides they have made. It's all due to money. Science and engineering requires a lot of money.

What you are talking about only helps until you leave school. After that it's all up to your environment. For example, New Zealand has a better STEM education system than India does, granted, but where is their space program, where is their defence program, where is their nuclear program? Where is the environment necessary for them to actually take their education to the next level?

 

[Bali78]

So far Rafale is stuck at 36 and both the opposition as well as Modi's rivals in the BJP are trying their damnedest to make buying more a toxic issue.

The IAF may want stuff, but they don't realize that defense of the country takes second place to political games.

You can blame Modi's suit for this . The "Suit boot ki sarkar" jibe, completely reordered the spending priorities of current government. So Indian defense will have to tolerate this for one more year, hopefully!!

 

[Desi Lover]

Science and engineering are highly professional fields. You learn on the job. And then you have to specialize. Everything you learn may seem important, but has no relevance when you actually hit the floor and start working.

It doesn't matter what kind of essay I make an engineer write, he needs to get his hands dirty if he has to learn and only the working environment provides that. That is the case in India. In western countries, their schools and universities work with many times more funds than we do, so we cannot provide the same kind of learning environment right now.

The Chinese higher education system is as bad as ours, perhaps worse, but look at the strides they have made. It's all due to money. Science and engineering requires a lot of money.

What you are talking about only helps until you leave school. After that it's all up to your environment. For example, New Zealand has a better STEM education system than India does, granted, but where is their space program, where is their defence program, where is their nuclear program? Where is the environment necessary for them to actually take their education to the next level?

'Once you leave school'
this is the Indian mentality that most Indians have and cant come out of without experiencing another education system. In india we think about getting experience in field after leaving school where as in Here as well as most other western nations, students get into field during school and get opportunity to use theory in practice, they get a feel of what they want to do in future by trying different option.

Secondly, why would NZ want to have its own defence or space prog etc when they are taken care off by the US? All the scientists from here in those fields either go to europe or usa.

There are a lot of things wrong in our education system which needs to be changed else we'll keep crying about indigenous system in 2120.

 

[randomradio]

'Once you leave school'
this is the Indian mentality that most Indians have and cant come out of without experiencing another education system. In india we think about getting experience in field after leaving school where as in Here as well as most other western nations, students get into field during school and get opportunity to use theory in practice, they get a feel of what they want to do in future by trying different option.

Yeah, for that you need money. But engineering doesn't work like that. Nobody will even let you touch anything if you enter the "field" in engineering. The only way to "feel the field" is to give your university enough money so that they can simulate the "field" inside labs, and this costs a bomb. Just getting a supercomputer for a university is a major national event that's published in papers. And this is the cheap stuff.

Engineering is very hard core. Without exposure, you are nothing. The reason why India has so many coders is because we have easy access to computers, but we don't have high-end biomedical engineers in that respect who can design and manufacture a MRI machine.

When doctors are trained, they are trained on dead bodies as well and someone has to provide it. It's not like an undergrad can go to a dead accident victim and start poking and prodding him. It's the same with engineering. You gotta get your hands dirty and no "field" will allow a "dumbass" kid with no experience and contract to even look at their stuff, let alone touch it. All hi-tech stuff is hands-off unless you actually are employed by the company or organization. And defence tech is off-limits to most of the employees working in the organization as well.

Secondly, why would NZ want to have its own defence or space prog etc when they are taken care off by the US? All the scientists from here in those fields either go to europe or usa.

Nope. Nuclear, space and defence are closed to anybody but permanent residents and/or citizens of the country. So a New Zealander will have to move to the US, get a Green Card and only then can he work in core fields.

There are a lot of things wrong in our education system which needs to be changed else we'll keep crying about indigenous system in 2120.

The problem with our country isn't the education system. As I said, engineering is a professional field. The only way to do it is to get field education on the job. Otherwise, it's all closed and all you have are your books.

For example--
Do you know that the entire modern multi-core family of Intel's Xeon server processors were designed by Indians? The first high end 4 core processor was designed by Indian-educated Indians in Intel.

Indian Team Designs Intel's First 'true' Quad-core Chip
Intel released its first "true" quad-core processors on Monday with the introduction of its Xeon 7400 series of server chips, formerly called Dunnington. Designed by Intel engineers in Bangalore, India, the chip lineup includes the company's first quad-core and six-core chips produced on a single piece of silicon.

Bangalore designs Intel's first quad-core processor - Times of India
Intel India appears to have put its disappointment with the Whitefield chip well behind it. The company on Tuesday announced that its team in Bangalore had taken a big leap in development work, with the creation of a chip for the high-end server segment.

The chip is Intel's first 6-core x86 microprocessor.

About 98% of the work on the processor - including the front-end design, pre-silicon logic validation and the back-end design - was done out of the Bangalore centre, with some support coming from the Santa Clara and Malaysia centres.

Something for you to be proud about. How did this happen? On-the-job training with the right equipment. In the final year, Intel interned a bunch of my batchmates from my college to join their workforce. That's the only way to get good.

 

[The enlightened]

Both numbers are real and will happen because those are the requirements and were spelt out by the IAF themselves.

India needs 200-250 more Rafale fighters, 36 not enough: IAF chief Arup Raha
“But we have just ordered 36 aircraft and we require more aircraft in this middle weight category to give entire spectrum of capability,” he said, adding that a void has been created in the past because of obsolescence and many of the squadrons will be past their use-by date. “We have already used them for four decades plus. It is time to retire them and get new aircraft… Over the next 10 years, we must have 200-250 aircraft. It has to be balanced out. In the heavy weight spectrum, we have enough. But in the medium weight category, we need to have more. Yes, about 200 will be very good,” he said.

The IAF wants a GTG deal for medium aircraft, 100+ in the initial tranche and will climb to 200 easily. Again, because that's the requirement. What's more interesting, my quote for 200 Rafale was in Feb 2016 while ACM Arup Raha echoed the same in Dec 2016. Wonder what I know when even the ACM says the same thing.

Gripen collapsed into Tejas, so Tejas numbers have climbed from 120+ to 320+.

As for FGFA, it's common sense that any typical large air force's AS numbers are 1/3rd of the squadron strength at the very minimum, that's why MKI is at 270. And that's why FGFA will also climb to those numbers. You forget that the FGFA procurement process itself is a 30-year process.

Basically all my numbers are right. Requirements are gospel.

Basically you have the mind of a 3 year old.

'Mama mama it is true because i heard him say it. So it is true'?

Here is a nice fun game for you. Try to guess the year of the article without going through the link

Deal on AJTs by Sept-end: Tipnis
Tribune News Service​

NEW DELHI, Aug 29 — The Indian Air Force (IAF) is expecting that the deal for the purchase of urgently needed Advance Jet Trainers (AJTs) for the training of fighter pilots would be signed with British Aerospace within the next four to six weeks.

Speaking to the newsmen here, the Chief of Air staff, Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis, however, clarified that even after the signing of the contract, it could well take another two years before the first batch of the AJTs to land in India. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is looking forward to working out a deal where indigenous serial production of the aircraft could also be undertaken.

India is also looking forward to getting the licence for the indigenous production of one of the country’s frontline fighter aircraft-Mirage-2000. Having already got the aircraft in its inventory, India is not only on the verge of buying another 10 of them but also trying to get the licence for serial production of the aircraft here. The price negotiations for the purchase of Mirage are also in the final stages.

Air Chief Marshal Tipnis, while trying to clarify that there was no problem with the MiGs, specially the MiG-21s which have recently seen a spate of accidents, pointed out that the IAF was definitely “feeling the pinch” in not having the AJTs. He said that the AJTs would have easily filled the gap between the low demand and high demand fighter aircraft.

The main cause of the recent accidents was not technical, but human failure. New pilots, though they were being imparted the best of training, were somehow not being able to cope with the sudden high demand in flying of MiG-21s.

According to him the first of the 123 Mig-21 Bis to be upgraded in India to enhance the operational capabilities of the fighter aircraft will roll out next year and another batch of Sukhoi 30 will join the Indian Air force by 2001-end.

The next batch of the Sukhoi-30 MK I will also be inducted by the end of next year. The induction of the aircraft had not gone according to plan but the process had now been streamlined, he said. The delay was because the IAF wanted to integrate systems from various sources into the aircraft.

Air Chief Marshal Tipnis said the flight refuelling aircraft (FRA), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and airborne warning and control systems (AWACS) were all a part of the IAF’s plans and it would be acquiring them.

The Air Chief, disturbed at media reports criticising the IAF for the crash of the MiGs, said the ratio of aircraft accidents of MiG-21 vis a vis the total fighter fleet was less than 50 per cent.

He said one-thirds of the total flying of the four categories of aircraft with the IAF was done by fighter planes and more than 50 per cent of flying of warplanes was done by MiG-21s.

“I will continue to fly the Mig 21 till I retire”, the Air Chief, who first got into the cockpit of a Mig-21 in 1963, said emotionally, adding that he considered every pilot as his son and he would not allow them to fly a MiG-21 if he thought that something was wrong with the plane. “The poor old lady is getting a bad name not keeping with her image”.

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Nation

'

 

[randomradio]

Basically you have the mind of a 3 year old.

'Mama mama it is true because i heard him say it. So it is true'?

Here is a nice fun game for you. Try to guess the year of the article without going through the link

Deal on AJTs by Sept-end: Tipnis
Tribune News Service​

NEW DELHI, Aug 29 — The Indian Air Force (IAF) is expecting that the deal for the purchase of urgently needed Advance Jet Trainers (AJTs) for the training of fighter pilots would be signed with British Aerospace within the next four to six weeks.

Speaking to the newsmen here, the Chief of Air staff, Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis, however, clarified that even after the signing of the contract, it could well take another two years before the first batch of the AJTs to land in India. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is looking forward to working out a deal where indigenous serial production of the aircraft could also be undertaken.

India is also looking forward to getting the licence for the indigenous production of one of the country’s frontline fighter aircraft-Mirage-2000. Having already got the aircraft in its inventory, India is not only on the verge of buying another 10 of them but also trying to get the licence for serial production of the aircraft here. The price negotiations for the purchase of Mirage are also in the final stages.

Air Chief Marshal Tipnis, while trying to clarify that there was no problem with the MiGs, specially the MiG-21s which have recently seen a spate of accidents, pointed out that the IAF was definitely “feeling the pinch” in not having the AJTs. He said that the AJTs would have easily filled the gap between the low demand and high demand fighter aircraft.

The main cause of the recent accidents was not technical, but human failure. New pilots, though they were being imparted the best of training, were somehow not being able to cope with the sudden high demand in flying of MiG-21s.

According to him the first of the 123 Mig-21 Bis to be upgraded in India to enhance the operational capabilities of the fighter aircraft will roll out next year and another batch of Sukhoi 30 will join the Indian Air force by 2001-end.

The next batch of the Sukhoi-30 MK I will also be inducted by the end of next year. The induction of the aircraft had not gone according to plan but the process had now been streamlined, he said. The delay was because the IAF wanted to integrate systems from various sources into the aircraft.

Air Chief Marshal Tipnis said the flight refuelling aircraft (FRA), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and airborne warning and control systems (AWACS) were all a part of the IAF’s plans and it would be acquiring them.

The Air Chief, disturbed at media reports criticising the IAF for the crash of the MiGs, said the ratio of aircraft accidents of MiG-21 vis a vis the total fighter fleet was less than 50 per cent.

He said one-thirds of the total flying of the four categories of aircraft with the IAF was done by fighter planes and more than 50 per cent of flying of warplanes was done by MiG-21s.

“I will continue to fly the Mig 21 till I retire”, the Air Chief, who first got into the cockpit of a Mig-21 in 1963, said emotionally, adding that he considered every pilot as his son and he would not allow them to fly a MiG-21 if he thought that something was wrong with the plane. “The poor old lady is getting a bad name not keeping with her image”.

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Nation

'

*yawn*

 

[Bali78]

'Once you leave school'
this is the Indian mentality that most Indians have and cant come out of without experiencing another education system. In india we think about getting experience in field after leaving school where as in Here as well as most other western nations, students get into field during school and get opportunity to use theory in practice, they get a feel of what they want to do in future by trying different option.

Secondly, why would NZ want to have its own defence or space prog etc when they are taken care off by the US? All the scientists from here in those fields either go to europe or usa.

There are a lot of things wrong in our education system which needs to be changed else we'll keep crying about indigenous system in 2120.

Forget about aerospace or defense, can you name some innovation coming out of New Zealand? Don't bother listing out New Zealanders achievement outside New Zealand.

Finland's population is roughly same as New Zealand and I guess I need not mention Finland's contribution to tech world.

BTW, you are not the first one to jump around blaming our education systems or loathe everything "Indian". There are plenty of examples who suddenly feel enlightened after landing in a so called " Western Country".

 

[The enlightened]

Forget about aerospace or defense, can you name some innovation coming out of New Zealand? Don't bother listing out New Zealanders achievement outside New Zealand.

Finland's population is roughly same as New Zealand and I guess I need not mention Finland's contribution to tech world.

BTW, you are not the first one to jump around blaming our education systems or loathe everything "Indian". There are plenty of examples who suddenly feel enlightened after landing in a so called " Western Country".

Spoiler: Off topic

Electric Turbopumps. Carbon Fiber Composite tanks.

Don't let its US registration fool you either, this is a completely made by kiwi rocket with actual path breaking technologies.

 

[randomradio]

Forget about aerospace or defense, can you name some innovation coming out of New Zealand? Don't bother listing out New Zealanders achievement outside New Zealand.

Finland's population is roughly same as New Zealand and I guess I need not mention Finland's contribution to tech world.

BTW, you are not the first one to jump around blaming our education systems or loathe everything "Indian". There are plenty of examples who suddenly feel enlightened after landing in a so called " Western Country".

Our education system is flawed. It stamps out creativity.

But it's different when it comes to engineering. While Engineering requires creativity, none of that actually comes into play without investment into technologies first. You need a canvas, paint and paint brush before you actually learn how to paint. Engineering is art after all.

 

[Himanshu]

GIFAS Launches a Mission to Strengthen French-Indian Aerospace Cooperation in the Wake of the French President's Visit

GIFAS, the French Aerospace Industries Association, a driving force behind French-Indian cooperation, will head a major industrial mission to India from 16 to 19 April 2018, drawing on the very constructive and promising feedback resulting from French President Emmanuel Macron’s official visit to India.

Eric Trappier, the Chairman of GIFAS and Chairman of CIDEF (Council of French Defence Industries), has enlisted 60 French aerospace industrial companies for this outward mission to further French-Indian cooperation efforts.

Cooperation in the areas of aeronautics and space that started in the Fifties, is organised and well established. It has been strengthened by bilateral strategic partnerships that were brokered twenty years ago.

This GIFAS trade mission is an industrial demonstration of this long-standing strategic partnership across the civilian, defence and space sectors.

During their mission from 16 to 19 April 2018, the delegation will make stops in New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad, where meetings are organised to bring together the sectors’ companies from both countries.

The major aviation and space players representing both civilian and defence business interests will be present – Airbus, ArianeGroup, Dassault Aviation, MBDA, Safran and Thales – not to mention 54 subcontractors, suppliers, SMEs and equipment manufacturers.

The Chairman of GIFAS, Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation, supported by seven members of the GIFAS board, will lead this important mission to India. In advance of the occasion, he stated: “France and GIFAS are proud to develop and strengthen our bonds with India through this mission, as our country and industries are clearly committed to encouraging the “Make in India” initiative. We are glad to contribute to buttressing the strategic partnership between France and India”.

About GIFAS

GIFAS (Groupement des Industries Françaises Aéronautiques et Spatiales), the French Aerospace Industries Association, is an industry body formed in 1908, that brings together some 400 companies ranging from the main prime contractors and system suppliers to SMEs that together form a cohesive, supportive and hard-driving hightechnology sector specializing in the design, development, construction, marketing and maintenance of all aeronautical and space programmes and equipment, both civilian and military, as well as defence and security systems – planes, helicopters, drones, motors, devices and missiles, satellites and space launchers, major systems and equipment, defence and security systems. GIFAS represents an industry whose 2016 sales turnover was € 60.4 bn, and that exports 86% of its output, directly employs 187 000 individuals and annually invests more than 14% of its sales turnover in R&D.

 

[Bali78]

Our education system is flawed. It stamps out creativity.

But it's different when it comes to engineering. While Engineering requires creativity, none of that actually comes into play without investment into technologies first. You need a canvas, paint and paint brush before you actually learn how to paint. Engineering is art after all.

I do not completely agree with you. We definitely need more investment. But that is not always the core issue. Remember most start ups in sillicon valley started in garages with little investment. We seriously lack in two things.
1. We always look for quick returns and our risk appetite is extremely low. That is the reason Indian companies grew so fast in services sector while our achievement in products segment is next to nil.
2. In government labs the management is pathetic. The babu culture inherited from British era and further groomed by socialist governments is the biggest hurdle in any innovation.

I worked in a govt R & D lab and we had all the best possible instruments available. I have worked with many MNCs after that, both in India and US. None of them have labs as well equipped as our Indian govt lab. Difficult to believe. But it's a fact.

In govt org, you can order any equipment you need and most likely it will be approved. Once we ordered a protocol analyzer and it was imported and delivered to us within 4-5 months. It costed a whopping 1.3 crores in 2003. On the other hand, if your most brilliant engineer is quitting, as a manager you can't even offer 1 rupee to retain him. MNCs will throw any amount to retain a good guy, but when it comes buying equipment or tools, they are extremely judicious.

Point is, it's not always lack of investment, that hampers innovation in Indian labs. It's the way the money is spent, matters a lot.

I agree that in many domains like aerospace, we need some serious investment in infrastructure.

Apart from that no one can ever dispute the contribution of our Babus in derailing crucial projects !! Their contribution alone overshadows all the other issues combined.

 

[randomradio]

I do not completely agree with you. We definitely need more investment. But that is not always the core issue. Remember most start ups in sillicon valley started in garages with little investment. We seriously lack in two things.
1. We always look for quick returns and our risk appetite is extremely low. That is the reason Indian companies grew so fast in services sector while our achievement in products segment is next to nil.
2. In government labs the management is pathetic. The babu culture inherited from British era and further groomed by socialist governments is the biggest hurdle in any innovation.

I worked in a govt R & D lab and we had all the best possible instruments available. I have worked with many MNCs after that, both in India and US. None of them have labs as well equipped as our Indian govt lab. Difficult to believe. But it's a fact.

In govt org, you can order any equipment you need and most likely it will be approved. Once we ordered a protocol analyzer and it was imported and delivered to us within 4-5 months. It costed a whopping 1.3 crores in 2003. On the other hand, if your most brilliant engineer is quitting, as a manager you can't even offer 1 rupee to retain him. MNCs will throw any amount to retain a good guy, but when it comes buying equipment or tools, they are extremely judicious.

Point is, it's not always lack of investment, that hampers innovation in Indian labs. It's the way the money is spent, matters a lot.

I agree that in many domains like aerospace, we need some serious investment in infrastructure.

Apart from that no one can ever dispute the contribution of our Babus in derailing crucial projects !! Their contribution alone overshadows all the other issues combined.

Again, apathy has nothing to do with the type of education we are talking about. Bureaucratic apathy is a bane in India. This has more to do with the govt structure than education.

I suppose you were excited to join a govt company and start working, and it's only after that did you see the govt apathy, right? Your education did not instill apathy in you.

There is a reason for the laziness there. The managers there need to ensure projects run for long periods of time. If they end early, then you will no longer get funding.

The start-ups example is bad because pretty much all of it in India is centered around a computer, which is easy enough to purchase. It's the hi-tech stuff that propels a nation forward, that's space, nuclear, biotech, defence etc.

 

[Bali78]

Again, apathy has nothing to do with the type of education we are talking about. Bureaucratic apathy is a bane in India. This has more to do with the govt structure than education.

I suppose you were excited to join a govt company and start working, and it's only after that did you see the govt apathy, right? Your education did not instill apathy in you.

There is a reason for the laziness there. The managers there need to ensure projects run for long periods of time. If they end early, then you will no longer get funding.

The start-ups example is bad because pretty much all of it in India is centered around a computer, which is easy enough to purchase. It's the hi-tech stuff that propels a nation forward, that's space, nuclear, biotech, defence etc.

That's the point. I didn't find education being a barrier at any point of time. There is always a scope for improvement. But putting the blame (lack of innovation ) completely on our education system,is BS.

Having said that the recent modifications (in last 10-15 yrs) in Indian education system to reduce stress on students, is pathetic and resulted in deep degradation in quality.

 

[randomradio]

That's the point. I didn't find education being a barrier at any point of time. There is always a scope for improvement. But putting the blame (lack of innovation ) completely on our education system,is BS.

Having said that the recent modifications (in last 10-15 yrs) in Indian education system to reduce stress on students, is pathetic and resulted in deep degradation in quality.

I don't know about the second sentence. But school education has to improve a lot. The focus has to shift from rote to creative learning.

 

[Bali78]

I don't know about the second sentence. But school education has to improve a lot. The focus has to shift from rote to creative learning.

We might be going off topic.

What I meant by recent degradation is the introduction of objective type/ multiple choice type test system combined with no percentage and only grade system introduced by UPA. This actually made scoring easy and kids are not interested in learning the concepts. During my time, every answer has to be elaborated and mathematical problems needed to be solved with all inter mediate steps to get full marks. This helps in evaluating students in a better way and student needs to understand the concept to get high scores. That is not the case any more and I can clearly see the effect when I interview fresh grads. They clearly lack fundamentals.

Let me tell you something interesting. US elementary and middle schools followed that easy/ relaxed test system earlier and that resulted in huge number of students dropping out from high school since they could not cope up with tough high school curriculum. Recently they introduced common core system which is quite similar to our earlier system and emphasizes a lot on detailed explanation/ intermediate steps, than just writing the final answer, pretty much same what I went through during my schooling.

Of course I clearly see a lot more emphasis on science and languages in US schools compared to India and we need to work on that. But when it comes to mathematics, Indian system beats US education system by a mile.

Bottom line is while Indians are blindingly copying western system ( Mushrooming international schools claiming holistic growth), Americans are copying old Indian system!! Both systems have their share of pros and cons and no system is perfect!!

 

[vstol Jockey]

Specifics now mentioned by you, not generalized. That is all that is required. Do not paint the whole organization with one broad stroke. As of yet, does not hold for the armed forces to paint in one broad stroke, like one can paint Police Forces and Politicians.

And no, ASQRs are not tweaked by AF, but tweaked by AF on government directives. That is a case for every acquisition. Be it the Jaguars and Mirages or the Mig 27s and C-17s.

Please stop making a fool of yourself and of Armed forces. I did the testing of first ever battery for Kiran aircraft in 1988 and it failed. I wrote down my report and no one had the guts to challenge it.
Imagine we have an Air Force which does not even know how a flight is planned. The flight planning starts backwards from the destination. can you @Hellfire explain how and why IAF test pilots, considered one of the best in the world failed to read the performance graphs of Agusta helicopters? Please see the statement of ex RM Parrikar in LS and explain to me and others as to how IAF could give a go ahead for an aircraft which could not take off from Srinagar airport and while it was supposed to fly over Zojila Pass?
Love for motherland should be balanced and not blind. You are a blind man. Not by eyes but by mind.