Meet the IAF's latest bird

I had written about India's MMRCA deal many moons ago on this blog, and about the six beautiful aircraft that were vying to be a part of the Indian Air Force's inventory in the coming decades. Considering the defense deal of the decade by many, this deal was touted as a completely fair and transparent deal in which the winner would be decided solely on the IAF's checklist of what it was looking for in the winning aircraft. Of course, the argument goes that to make it a completely technical decision was a completely political decision.

Given that there was so much global attention paid to this deal, in which India was looking to get 126 fighter aircraft and a possible 80 added on for a price that could stretch beyond USD 15 billion, or INR 75,000 Crore, I think India's policy makers thought it best to not screw it up completely. Thus, in a land beset by defense scandals, this was supposed to be a rare case of a defense deal in which proper procedure was followed and the Armed Forces' best interest kept in mind. Of course, it is not to say that politicians haven't made money off it - I'm sure they have, but as was the supposed case in Bofors, despite the Gandhi family and the Government making money off it, the gun was actually very good and well liked by the Army. The same, many online observers and commentators are saying, may be true here.

The deal did take over a decade to materialize, and was not fraught without its moments of uncertainty and possible scandal. This link by the Asian Age gives a good idea of the time line of this deal.

• 2000: Indian Air Force (IAF) conveys to defence ministry its interest in acquiring medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) to replace its ageing fleet of Soviet-era MiG-21s and because of delays in developing the indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA).
• 2001: IAF issues request for information (RFI) for 126 combat jets.
• 2003: IAF seeks defence ministry's permission to buy 50 more French Mirage-2000s to shore up the only MMRCAs in its fleet as a stop-gap arrangement. The aircraft had been acquired in the mid-1980s.
• 2004: Defence ministry asks IAF to instead issue a larger MMRCA tender.
• 2005: Defence ministry issues initial MMRCA tender but withdraws it quickly even as it starts receiving responses from vendors. 
• 2006: The then IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi, flags the dwindling squadron strength of the force. From a sanctioned strength of 39.5 combat squadrons, the IAF is down to 33 squadrons.
• August 2007: India issues the tender for 126 MMRCAs at an estimated cost of $10.4 billion.
• February 2008: US majors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Russia's United Aircraft Corporation, France's Dassault, European consortium EADS and Sweden's SAAB submit their bids.
• April 2009: Reports that Dassault and SAAB are out of the race.
• May 2009: Defence ministry says Dassault and SAAB still in contention.
• April 2010: IAF completes its flight and weapons evaluation of the six contenders on the basis of 643 parameters.
• December 2010: Offset proposals of contenders goes missing; later found on the roadside in south Delhi. The incident threatens to derail the tendering process.
• April 2011: India down-selects EADS and Dassault for the final leg of the contest, rejecting the other four contenders.
• November 2011: The commercial offers from European consortium Eurofighter and France's Dassault Aviation opened.
• January 31, 2012: Dassault informed that it has emerged as the lowest bidder.

As a caveat, the deal is not a done deal yet. In fact, what has happened is that now Dassault will enter into exclusive negotiations with the Air Force and the Ministry of Defense to hammer out the nitty gritty of the deal, such as the final price per aircraft, the weaponry, the modifications, the transfer of technology, and other aspects. According to the media, a firm agreement will only be signed not before 9 months from now, at least.

I will come back to the whining and hand wringing that is going on around the world currently with many people unhappy that their product was not chosen, but right now, I want to write more about the beautiful and deadly aircraft that the Indian Government has selected to negotiate exclusively with and possibly induct into the Armed Forces, provided there are no major scandals and allegations and obstacles thrown in the way by interested parties.

Both Eurofighter and the Rafale are excellent 4.5 generation fighter jets, but India has had a great experience with French fighters, most recently with the Mirage 2000 during the Kargil War. Both planes look beautiful, are twin engined, have canards, and offer the AESA radar, a new age radar that allows a plane to track and engage multiple aggressors at once.

Photo Copyright held by online source

Photo Copyright held by online source

Photo Copyright held by online source

India has been good for France and Sarkozy in particular, who goes to polls in three months and this can be seen as a major victory for him and a lifeline to the French industry. Of course, that is not to say that despite French military hardware to Pakistan, France has not been a good military partner to India, albeit expensive, but much more reliable than even the Russians in many cases, and definitely more than the Americans. As India announced that the Rafale had been selected as the lowest bidder, beating the Eurofighter by about USD 5-6 million per aircraft, the stock price of Dassault on the Paris Stock Exchange rose 22%!

The French already work with India on a number of big ticket projects, the most important being the construction of the 6 Scorpene submarines, 4 of which are under construction/to be built in India. Then India is working closely with SNECMA, a French engine manufacturer, on our own Kaveri engine. In addition, India is looking for major support from France on nuclear know-how, and this is where France has often gone against the rest of the nuclear suppliers group in their attempt to block transfer of critical technology and knowhow to India.

It has been very amusing to read the reaction of the UK and the USA on finding out that Dassault's the L1. Particularly laughable has been the British insistence that the ungrateful Indians should have gone for the Eurofighter given the billions provided by the UK to India as aid. Another laughable article in the Guardian was that the reason Eurofighter, and in effect UK, failed to get the contract was because of the current Government's poor relations with the Gandhi Dynasty!

Of course, the fact that it is France is not lost on the British, and perhaps even the Americans. The colonial hang-up has refused to leave many of the politicians there, and Sarkozy and David Cameron in the past have openly made fun of each other's industrial economy. I think many Brits can't over the fact that the UK has provided India over a Billion GBP in aid and yet the Indians did this to them. France, as it turns out, gave less than a tenth of that aid amount in the same period! So the article above from the Daily Mail goes to great lengths to again resort to the kind of condescension that one can expect from a white colonialist. Yes, we're corrupt, yes we're poor, and yes our entire system is a kleptocracy. There's no doubt about any of these and sure the Brits are angry, but linking relations with Gandhi's (who are they anyway?), giving of aid, to a defense deal shows the hypocrisy that is prevalent in the west when it comes to doing business with the third world.

The angst is on all shores of the Atlantic, not just the Eastern shores. The US has not been to bullying or forceful since the Super Hornet and Fighting Falcon were not downselected from the original six contenders. An article in the American site, The Agonist, says that the US lost out to India because of its unwillingness to share technology with India at the level that France is proposing to do. Also, as some online commentators pointed out, did President Obama really think India would go for an American product even though they know its a watered down version of their best, with some critical technologies withheld, only because of this new India-US partnership and camaraderie?

Of course, it would have been the best situation if India had been manufacturing such cutting edge fighter jets on its own, but we're far from that state, though not as far now as say 20 years ago, but till then, India needs to maintain a minimum deterrence because it is becoming increasingly clear that the Chinese are becoming cockier by the day. The whole of South East Asia hates them, and since financial bullying can't win you land, i suppose it will have to be the good old military bullying. Of course, the bottom line is that China is in a hurry to be a super power, and since it has none of the institutions that constitute a modern society, it can only influence others by money and by force. Defense Aerospace magazine has a very good article on the political analysis of the deal. The article cites a mix of geo-political compulsions, a lot of historical precedents, and what is the best deal from the Indians' point of view.

I love the Armed Forces, still have that little boy's adoration for their cool weaponry, and am eager to see them expand and become better. Of course, these go against my visions of peace and stability at the highest level of human society, but I have always been a utopian, and have always been shown that it simply does not, and cannot exist. So let us hope to welcome the sexy beast to the fold, our poverty, illiteracy, health care and homelessness notwithstanding! :-)

Proud to be from Dehradun

For the first time ever, a shoe has been thrown at the man, or a big boy rather, who is supposed to be future Prime Minister of this country. Yes, a shoe thrown at our very own Rahul Gandhi, and that too in Vikas nagar in our own Uttarakhand!

Shoe thrown at Rahul Gandhi in Uttarakhand rally

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi was at the receiving end of a flying shoe at a rally in Vikasnagar in Uttarakhand on Monday afternoon while addressing a poll rally. The shoe flew past him and the offender was seen taken away by security officers. Gandhi was heard requesting the security not to beat up the man.

 

Shoes seem to be flying thick and fast in Uttarakhand this poll season with one thrown last Saturday at Team Anna in Dehra Dun. Arvind Kejriwal was addressing the gathering at Lord Venkateshwara Hall when a shoe was aimed at him. But it missed him, as well as social activists Kiran Bedi and Manish Sisodia who were also on the dais.

Apparently there was an ink attack on Baba Ramdev as well recently when he was addressing a press conference on black money. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a retaliatory attack, not organized but most likely by a follower of truth and justice taking on the dirty CONgress, but nevertheless, I sincerely believe that CONgress is adept at playing dirty games, and if anybody else has to take them on, they have to play their dirty game.

Ramdev is of course a persona non grata for the Gandhi party, since he is one of the few eminent people in the country willing to take on the fight against them. Hence begins the well run smear campaign that labels him a non-Indian, a corrupt person himself, a rabid right wing Hindu nationalist, and a few other nice direct accusations.

According to the link above,

Ramdev had earlier announced that he would campaign against corruption and black money while targeting the Congress in the five states where Assembly elections are being held.

Congress spokesperson condemned the attack and said the Government was trying to tackle the black money menace.

"Whatever happened is unfortunate. If anybody has done wrong, we condemn it. Ramdev has a right to oppose Congress. It doesn't make any difference at all. As far as black money is concerned, we have done our best. It's a serious issue," said Alvi.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh denied his party's hand in the incident. "I see a conspiracy behind this to incite communal tension. Identity of this person should be investigated," said Singh.

So there you have it. Pick a Muslim guy to throw ink at Baba Ramdev for talking about black money. If one has to look at conspiracy theories, one can portray that the Muslims of India are thoroughly behind the CON party and this act will further spur the Muslims of India to stand up for the grand party that has helped them out so many times over the past decades.

Also notice how Doggy Singh's comments are ALWAYS asked for when something happens. This is definitely a ploy by the Gandhi's and their henchmen to divert public attention from the real question, I feel. When one is unable to face the message, one diverts from the topic, or one attacks the messenger. So something happens that will show the Gandhi's in poor light, and in comes their faithful, and immediately the public is talking about the asinine comments he made.

Congress is of course demanding a thorough inquiry as to how a shoe could reach so close to their beloved prince.

"I condemn it. It is unfortunate. For some time, BJP has been saying that people will come on streets and a civil war could take place. Such kind of irresponsible statements encourage such acts. I do not know exactly who is behind it but political parties and political leaders should be very careful before giving such statements," party spokesperson Rashid Alvi told PTI.

Party general secretary Digvijay Singh said those hurling shoes or showing black flags have the same intention and motive.

In an oblique reference to Baba Ramdev, he said, "They all have same intentions that somehow we would scare them and the cases, which are registered against them, will be stopped.

Singh said Rahul Gandhi belongs to a brave family "but who is Ramdev. He is a criminal."

So after 60 years since being crowned the world's largest democracy, it has come to this. :-)

Intolerance among people, utter lack of conviction and scruples among the rulers, and a thorough disarray and chaos that permeates throughout the length of breadth of whatever is left of governance in this country.

Elections seems to bring out the worst in our democracy, each time and every time.

India is not China

While China today stands for nothing that defines a modern society - freedom of the individual, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, the Government of India and the upper judiciary of India have realized that with their browbeating and bullying, at least they get the job done.

In such a politically important time as this when the millions of poor and the needy in this country continue to live in poverty and malnutrition but are enraged at the kind of muck that is being hosted on facebook or google, the people in power are at least doing something about one of the above two problems.

So while I am critical of all the western media groups and websites and businesses that preach freedom of speech everywhere but bend over backwards on those principles in order to do business in India, I agree with what the counsel for Google India told the Honourable Delhi High Court - India is not China.

Google India, which along with 20 websites is facing criminal case for allegedly hosting objectionable material, on Monday told the Delhi High Court that blocking them was not an option as a democratic India does not have a “totalitarian” regime like China.

“The issue relates to a constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China,” advocate N.K. Kaul, appearing for Google India, told Justice Suresh Kait.

The biggest strengths of Google or Facebook today are its ability to connect people from all across the globe into one community. Freedom of the internet is a forgone conclusion for most of us, but then like so many other occasions, we must realize that there are absolute idiots roaming our streets or sitting in the highest offices of power who may never have opened a site and looked at the 'objectionable content', nor the 'objectionable content' will make any difference to their sorry little lives, but will take it upon themselves to free the society of the scourge of hate speech.

When I use the term hate speech, I am doing them a favour, because as far as I know, the Government of India is pissed only because now finally people have the guts to call out Sonia Gandhi for the dirty, greedy, secretive politician she is.

According to the New York Times, in October 2011, HRD minister Kapil Sibal called internet service providers to protest a Facebook page maligning Sonia Gandhi. Following another meeting in November, on December 5, 2011, Sibal called Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and others to proclaim that "the Indian government doesn't believe in censorship. It believes in self-regulation". But his request from the service providers was Herculean. They were to create a mechanism to identify and, perforce, excise "inflammatory" and "defamatory" material. The service providers were to be simultaneously regulators and spies.

All "objectionable" and "controversial" matter was to be reported to the government. In full form at a press conference on December 6, 2011, Sibal expressed a responsibility "to take care of the sensibilities of the people... (because) cultural ethos is very important to us". The IT ministry was now the cultural ministry. This expanded universe of threatened censorship was clear. Sibal's broad concerns were about defamation, obscenity and offending religious sensitivities, or were they? The websites took the view that they would not prescreen material. Sibal was positively threatening: "If you do not co-operate, we will have to take action".

In January 2012, the Delhi High Court was asked to stay criminal proceedings against Facebook India and Google India. The case itself was astonishing. A complaint was filed by Vinay Rai under the obscenity and other provisions of the Indian Penal Code. What the trial court did next was to summon representatives from 21 sites including Google, Yahoo, Facebook, YouTube. This was an extraordinary summons on an ambiguous complaint, about allegedly derogatory articles, asking these providers to submit to censorship in respect of free speech exercised by others through a pipeline they provided, but over the contents of which the providers had no control. The summons took place after the Metropolitan Magistrate had examined four witnesses and the Delhi Police affirmed the authenticity of the information. This was clearly enough to conquer the cyber world.

India represents a great conundrum in this regard. Indians have fanned out in the entire world as honest, hard working and well qualified Information technology professionals while the governance systems of this country are still far far away from even understanding how the same IT can change the entire way we work and live for the better. This is another great example of the grandiose image that politicians of power have of themselves.

The pendulum swings both ways, and with millions and millions of individuals of all genders, races, languages and genes access the same sites, there will be billions of thoughts, ideas, images and words that will be exchanged and viewed. While there will be many pages on Facebook, for example, praising India,  there will be many that will be spewing bile against it. Those that access the internet probably access only a few percentage points of it, and have learnt to ignore the rest, but as history tells us, particularly so the recent history of India, that there are many idiots out there roaming our streets or sitting in the offices of power who believe that it us up to them to save us from the scourge of opinions that they don't believe in.

In our overly sensitive and touchy modern India, we see such examples all the time. There was a time when Shiv Sena idiots beat up Cyber Cafe owners because somebody had written things online about Shivaji that weren't showing him in a glowing light. Since the internet is not a physical thing, nor can they attack the servers sitting in various parts of the world, they attack the nearest thing connected to the internet to vent their frustration.

If such hate sites, even if against Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, or whatever, had the ability to sway public opinion, I could imagine an ever-devious politician would be pricking his or her ears and listening to what its saying, but as far as I can see, a hate site against India really hasn't rankled me or anybody around me anytime. But the fact remains that with billions of opinions out there on the internet, there will be millions that one find objectionable, and when it comes to the internet, once again, we ignore them, or go to a chat site or a forum and create our own good rebuttal!

But I am talking sense in a situation which makes absolutely no sense at all. The Delhi High Court is warning these sites that they will not hesitate to do a China based on the case filed by a Mr. Vinay Rai, a journalist by profession and now a crusader of internet cleansing.

Acting on a complaint by Vinay Rai, the trial court had earlier summoned the representatives of 21 social networking sites, including those of Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Youtube. It had directed the centre to take "immediate appropriate steps" and file a report on January 13.

The complaint has been filed under Section 292 (sale of obscene books etc), 293 (sale of obscene objects to young person etc) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

A civil judge had last month ordered the social networking sites to remove all "anti-religious" or "anti-social" contents by February 6, 2012.

So a civil judge ordered these 21 sites with billions of combined users, probably trillions of pages and many trillions of accumulated comments and views, to clear all that they find objectionable within a few weeks. Vinay Rai's interview with the Wall Street Journal sheds some light on what is driving this man to be the great online crusader, and he says that he does not have a facebook account but it's his readers who keep him informed of objectionable material. Considering its an Urdu newspaper he edits, I am assuming a lot of objections then will have to do with sites and pages that are critical of Islam, and considering that this is such a politically important time, it is in the government's immediate interest to show the Muslim community that is stands by them. They may not be able to build schools for them or try harder to integrate them into the national, secular society, but like I said, at least it is taking care of one of their biggest problems - that of objectionable internet content.

As a Supreme Court lawyer writes in the India Today article I quoted in the beginning,

 The Congress has a long history of muzzling the press as in the cases of Sakal (1962) and Bennett and Coleman (1973), the Emergency (1975-77), the Indian Express case (1986), and the Defamation Bill 1988 among others. It seems to get paranoid when its leaders are portrayed in bad light or lampooned. The Congress should play big brother for the poor and not be so obsessed about attacks on its leaders in the name of cultural ethos. Ominously on Friday, the 13th of this month, the government sanctioned a pervasive criminal proceeding because the content of websites was against national interest. Have they been taking lessons from China?

Its disappointing, to say the least, to see the courts of this country stand up for the shenanigans of the nation's shameless government. The internet entered India's mainstream over a decade ago, and millions of Indians are online in various forms and capacities, and the timing of the Government's zealous fox-hunt tells me that it is nothing but a case of voter appeasement. Over the past years, the Government of India has behaved not like the government of a nation that aims to be a power, but as a unit that is shameless and brazen in its rape of the national treasury, but at the same time highly insecure about its image, bristling at even a hint of criticism and thoroughly incapable and unwilling to lead this nation.

Patralekha Chatterjee in The Asian Age makes a very valid point that this is a hogwash because the government, and the society in general, has always shied away from going after the real causes of our social division and collective rage. Who regulates the matrimonial sites who promote caste based marriages? why aren't Khaps told to change their ways and move out of the centuries old feudal mindset? Why are we not enraged as a society at crimes against women and children?

Unfortunately, like I have said many times before, tough problems need tough responses, and I simply do not believe if our society has the strength, but more importantly the inclination, to come together and work towards a better social structure. Its money and affluence that drives today's India, and since our government is an outcome of the same society, it can't be expected to, and won't, do what the society doesn't want it to do. 

Happy New Year!