Indian Armed Forces at a glance

Rafael or Mig-35 which fighter is best suited for IAF? By: Kartikeya Semwal Rafael Vs Mig-35 For long Indian Air Force (IAF) has been having the requirement of 114 fighters after it scrapped the 126 MMRCA (Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft) deal and purchased 36 Rafael fighters from France. The new MMRCA-2 called the MWF (Medium Weight Fighter) will acquire 114 new medium combat jets from a foreign company along with full TOT (Transfer of Technology) to manufacture the jet fighters completely in India, including it’s spare parts. For this, the winning foreign company will also have to partner with an Indian defence firm, & share their technical know-how with them. Now we all know that there are as many as 6 foreign companies from as many countries, which are vying to get the MWF order of 114 fighter jets. Here, we will focus on just 2 of them namely- Dassault Aviations of France & Mikoyan Consortium of Russia. While Dassault brings it’s most advanced combat jet R...

Tejas Mk1 in action.  Should HAL boost production of Tejas Mk-1 & Mk-1A? By:- Kartikeya Semwal Now that we all know that by the end of 2019, IAF will be down to just 30-32 squadrons as against the sanctioned strength of 42; it’s high time that the Govt. of India (GOI) & HAL should focus on addressing the issue of falling fighter squadrons of Indian Air-Force (IAF). HAL that has been tasked with producing the indigenous LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) Tejas Mk-1 & 1A has just produced 16 of the first 40 Tejas Mk-1s. So ironically, HAL has failed to produce even 1 full squadron of Tejas jets despite passage of 1 & ½ years which is very slow. While our threatening neighbours Pakistan & China are adding new fighters in considerable numbers every year. The latest news about Pakistan was that, it would start getting JF-17 block-III from July-August this year. Similarly, China too is adding J-20 5 th generation fighters at a good pace while India lags behind i...