After Operation Sindoor, the Army and Navy now view the IAF as not a supporting arm, but the spearhead of India's warfighting capability, capable of decisive outcomes across domains, explains Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd).
There has been a considerable drop in India's dependence on arms and equipment from Russia but the Indian military cannot operate effectively without Russian-supplied equipment and will continue to rely on its weapons systems in the near and middle terms, a Congressional Research Service report has said.
'Russia has got inherent military strength, they have a very good military equipment manufacturing infrastructure and by and large they are self-sufficient in their production capabilities'
India has over 4,000 medium tanks, but not a single light tank. It remains to be seen whether the Ladakh face-off with China galvanises a change, observes Ajai Shukla.
The story of the T-90 has been coloured by deception and obfuscation from even before the tank was procured. Business Standard has pieced together, from internal documents and multiple interviews with MoD sources, an account of how the Indian Army has saddled itself with an underperforming, yet overpriced, version of the Russian T-90.
The Army and the Defence Research Development Organisation will jointly carry out comparative trials of indigenous 'Arjun' tanks with Russian-made T-90s this June, increasing prospects of the former's induction in the force soon.
DRDO plans to build a tank for use in the mountains and in the jungles.
American armaments dominated the defence services's show of weaponry.
But private Indian defence firms prefer to do business with the West. Indian CEOs say they encounter difficulties in obtaining full and timely payment from Russian partners.
India is to buy around 350 T-90S main battle tanks from Russia under a deal to be inked in autumn this year, according to a top military official in Moscow.
As dawn broke on the Pokhran field firing ranges late last year, three of India's latest T-90 tanks readied themselves on the firing line.
The army is looking forward to the total indigenisation of the tank, now being built with Russian collaboration.
For some inexplicable reason, the army prefers to use Russian armour; Arjun is deployed in only two of its 63 armoured regiments.
The IAF faces a 'fighter gap' of 13 squadrons. The IAF would be caught seriously short in a two-front war -- the worst-case planning contingency in which China and Pakistan attack India simultaneously, points out Ajai Shukla.
The 13-page joint statement issued after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's annual summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin shows the breadth and depth of relations between the two countries and the trust factor that has been constant element behind it.
'The range of purchases throw a light on India's threat perception as also its perceived role of being a stabilising influence in the region,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
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