Its advanced Longbow radar picks up enemy armoured vehicles and then destroys them with anti-tank missiles, air-to-surface rockets or a chain gun that sends 625 rounds per minute ripping into the targets.

The Leh deputy commisioner who drew army headquarters's attention is a highly regarded IAS officer, whose father is Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa.

Costing Rs 500 billion, the INS Vishal will be the Indian military's single most expensive defence platform.

IAF officers say they are keen to serve justice quickly and make an example of those found guilty of operational lapses.

The artillery pounds targets and keeps the enemy's head down, preventing them from firing at attacking troops.

DRDO chief G Satheesh Reddy Reddy is the first Indian to be appointed Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Despite pending payments of over Rs 20,000 crore, HAL revenue grew 6% against the previous year.

'It would be a travesty if the Malaysian air force likes the Tejas, but decides against it because it sees the IAF reluctance to back the fighter.'

This will be the first instance since Independence that two of the three service chiefs will be the government's chosen men.

His background as an Indian Institute of Technology graduate and as a chief minister with an excellent track record as an administrator equipped him to initiate defence industry and policy reforms that are only now beginning to bear fruit.

The IAF has insisted it hit its targets. If that is indeed true, then the lack of obvious damage could mean it has used a different bomb -- possibly procured secretly from Israel.

'For Pakistan, the comfortable old calculations and certainties are no longer valid.' 'Strikes on Indian targets now carry a high risk of retaliation and escalation,' notes Ajai Shukla.

The INS Chakra III will be ideal for 'sea denial' missions, in which the submarine denies the enemy the use of the sea.

They have been exposed again by the IAF's ability to strike 80 km into Pakistan without being intercepted or incurring casualties.

In rebranding the F-16 into the F-21, Lockheed Martin appears to have accepted what many have warned it for years: That the IAF would never buy a fighter whose very name is associated across India with the Pakistan Air Force which has operated the F-16 since the 1980s.

'After decades, there is movement on multiple fronts in artillery development. Now let us see how quickly we can get these guns into service'

'The enemy knows he cannot defeat us in a conventional conflict. So today we showcase our ability to punish, our ability to insert and extricate our troops from hostile territories.'

'We found the MiG-29s to be in excellent condition. They could make an excellent addition to our fleet,' a senior air marshal tells Ajai Shukla.

Officers responsible for preparing budgets say their detailed costing projections are mostly ignored. The defence ministry simply takes the previous year's budgetary allocations for each service and adds a small percentage to those.

If the new request for 18 more fighters translates into a contract, the Sukhoi-30MKI fleet size will go up to 14 squadrons, or 290 fighters.