India has been buying weapons and trying to build them for decades. It has been buying junk from Moscow (Flying Coffins) and has been unable to produce weapons on its own. The list of Indian failures is long. Kevari Engine, Tejas LCA, Trishul, Nag, Agni Arjun and Brahmos are a few examples of the total failure of the Delhi arms. Indian missile failures
Despite spending humongous amounts of money the bureaucrats of the Ganges have been unable to make Bharat self-sufficient in arms production. It is the only country of any sizable size which cannot produce arms that it can export. This colossal failure of the Bharati arms industry has filtered down to the total lack of any credible manufacturing from Goa to Gurdaspur.
Of course the Tatas and the Birlas have pulled rabbits out of their hats with huge smoke and mirrors that make the average Bharati think that the paradise of the shantytowns in Mumbai that encompass half of the population of the city are part of Shining India. Bharatis are incapable of looking at the extreme penury around them and blind to the filth right outside the Delhi airport. They cannot smell the stench of human excrement right outside the Mumbai airport and oblivious to the fact that 80% of the population takes a dump every morning on the railway lines. A nation that does not have working toilets for 80% of its population is proud of the fact that it can turn on a switch on a Russian launcher and a Soviet era engine designed and made in Moscow. It is disgusting that the country which has the lowest PER CAPITA GNP in South Asia and has most of the world poor declare itself a Space power. A society full of untouchable, Sati, widow incarceration, and caste in incapable of any shine. The Slumdog power has 89 insurgencies with 40% of its territory under rebel control–this is “Incredible India”. Nothing incredible about the IT power whose revenues from the Call Centers are half that of IBM. There is no shine in the country where 450 Dalits and Untouchables eek out a living as slaves and 150 million Muslims simply survive.
The Slumdog power mesmerized by Bollywood (filmed outside Bharat) cannot come to terms with the simple fact that 80% of its population lives below $2 per day with the hunger index placing it below Burkino Faso. Why doesn’t Russia transfer plane technology to India?
One out of every 200 Indians is already employed by the Indian Armed Forces. Three out of every four Indians already live at or less than $2 a day. Bharat Sarkar (the Government of India) has, however, now jacked up the defence budget by a massive 55 percent. Who is India going to fight with?
India has 3,773,300 troops, plus 1,089,700 paramilitary forces (www.nationmaster.com). India’s army is second only to China in size. The Indian Air Force, with a total aircraft strength of 1,700, is the world’s 4th largest. The Indian Navy already operates some 13 dozen vessels with INS Viraat as its flagship, the only “full-deck aircraft carrier operated by a country in Asia or the Western Pacific, along with operational jet fighters.” Who is India going to fight with?
India has six neighbours; Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Nepal and China. India now spends a colossal $32.35 billion on defence, Pakistan $4.8 billion, Bangladesh $830 million, Nepal $100 million and Burma $30 million (according to Business Standard, India’s second-largest financial daily, “There is no apparent reason for India to understate its defence budget. No IMF conditions constrain defence spending…. But India continues to camouflage what other comparable liberal democracies transparently show as defence spending). Collectively, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Nepal spend $5.7 billion a year on defence. Who is India going to fight with?
Yes, there’s China and the People’s Republic spends $80 billion a year on defence. According to a report by Stratfor, the Texas-based private intelligence agency, “China has been seen as a threat to India, and simplistic models show them to be potential rivals. In fact, however, China and India might as well be on different planets. Their entire frontier runs through the highest elevations of the Himalayas. It would be impossible for a substantial army to fight its way through the few passes that exist, and it would be utterly impossible for either country to sustain an army there in the long term. The two countries are irrevocably walled off from each otherl…. Ideally, New Delhi wants to see a Pakistan that is fragmented, or at least able to be controlled. Towards this end, it will work with any power that has a common interest and has no interest in invading India.”
To be certain, India and China are not military rivals. Who is India then going to fight with? Bharatiya Sthalsena (the Indian Army) has a total of 13 corps, of which six are strike corps. Of the 13 corps at least seven have their guns pointed towards Pakistan. The 3rd Armoured Division, 2nd Armoured Brigade, 4 RAPID (Reorganised Army Plains Infantry Divisions), Jaisalmer AFS, Utarlai AFS and Bhuj AFS are all aiming at splitting Pakistan into two (by capturing the Kashmore/Guddu Barrage-Reti-Rahimyar Khan triangle). The News. Bharatiya Sthalsena Sunday, March 01, 2009 Dr Farrukh Saleem. The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS). Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
China achieves techonological independence in arms production
Russian Arms–Made in China
In the latter part of the 19th century the Chinese fought with the British and lost the first and the second Opium war. Dr. Sun Yet Sen and others tried to throw off the yolk of colonialism but were not very successful. It was Mao Ze Dung that was finally able to mold the country into a united country and expel the Japanese, the British and the other colonial powers that wanted to divide the country.
China has built it manufacturing sector from the ground up. It is very cognizant of the fact that the wealth of a nation is dependent on the manufacturing sector of a country. China bought equipment from Russia but only to build its own arms. It has now reached technological independence. Why did Pakistan buy fewer F-16s?
On Jan 21, 2009, India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) tested BrahMos, the supersonic cruise missile (from Brahmaputra and the Moskva of Russia). According to India Today, the “test failure was due to a software error (unit cost $2.73 million).”
On July 9, 2006, DRDO test fired Agni III (unit cost $8 million). The missile remained airborne for a mere five minutes and then fell into the sea off the coast of Orissa. The following day, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) failed to launch a satellite when its rocket veered off course (destroying an Insat-4C satellite). The combined value of the satellite and the rocket was Rs2.5 billion. Agni III was test fired again on April 12, 2007, and then once again on May 7, 2008.
In 1974, DRDO began developing Arjun tank. It took DRDO 30 years–with billions wasted–to deliver the first five units. In July 2008, the Indian Army said it was “capping Arjun’s induction at 124 units.” DRDO now plans to deliver the remaining units sometime in 2009.
In November 2008, Lt Col Shrikant Purohit was arrested by the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism squad for his involvement in the Samjhauta Express bombings. Sudha Ramachandran, writing for Asia Time Online, said, “The arrests have triggered a heated debate…. The probes point to the possibility of the hitherto secular and apolitical Indian Army being infected by the communal virus.”
Some nine years ago, India committed to achieve goals established at the Millennium Summit 2000. With so much money going into defence India is staring into a whole matrix of failures: failure in eradicating “extreme poverty and hunger”; failure in reducing the number of underweight children; failure in reducing child mortality; failure in reducing maternal mortality and failure in combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Why a country 75 percent of whose population is at or below $2 a day is bent upon spending $32.35 billion for the acquisition of more killing machines? Who is India then going to fight with? The News. Bharatiya Sthalsena Sunday, March 01, 2009 Dr Farrukh Saleem. The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS). Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
According to Parag Khanna, the world is witnessing the rise of China as a Superpower in the next few decades. India has missed the boat.
by:Moin Ansari
Rupee News
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