BY : Express Network

Beefing up its presence in peninsular India, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is aiming at the maximum use of all available and proposed airports in the southern states.

But it’s not just the spanking new airports that are on the IAF radar. The IAF is planning to revive a World War II-era airstrip in Tamil Nadu built by the British.

If the IAF plan gets through, the airstrip at Kayathar, the small village in Tuticorin district where Veerapandya Kattabomman was hanged, will get a fresh lease of life.

“The Air Force has plans to revive old airstrips. The revival of the one at

BY : THE HINDU

France has offered India a partnership to export hi-tech submarines to third countries. “Our strategy is not only to be in India for developing products for India but to develop for others because we think that a submarine is a strategic defence system which a lot of navies are interested in developing,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DCNS Jean-Marie Poimbeuf told The Hindu.

Submarines are counted as among the most potent defence platforms as they can operate undetected far beyond a country’s shores. The DCNS, 75 per cent owned by the French government, is currently building six submarines for India at Mazgaon Dock Limited (MDL), Mumbai, at a cost of about Rs. 15,000 crore.

BY : PTI

After a string of successful missile tests, India will undertake the climax trials of its indigenous third generation anti-tank missile 'Nag' next week.
The 'fire and forget' anti-tank missile, named after the King of snakes, Cobra, would undergo its final baptism trials for two days next week in the Pokhran desert, almost 22 years after it was first conceived, DRDO officials said.

Seven missiles would be fired against static and moving targets for 48 hours starting July 27 to test the land version of the weapon, which its makers the DRDO, claim can defeat any futuristic battle tank over a range of four kms.

BY : Stephen Trimble For Flight Global

Vladimir Karnozov, Flight's Moscow-based correspondent, got the Russian perspective on the F-22 flying display on Monday. Excerpted below are quotes from the article appearing in next week's magazine.


Going back to the Raptor, [Su-30MKi/MKA/MKM project manager Aleksandr] Barkovsky said that generally speaking the Su-30MKI performance is largely similar, "but we did it ten years ago".

The Su-35 with 16% more power and a bit less structural weight will perform somewhat better than the Raptor and the Su-30MKI. Touching on the Raptor's flat spin recovery maneuver, Barkovsky said the F-22A made only three-third of the

BY : IRNA


DRDO sources said the missile would be test-fired from the Sukhoi 30 MKI fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force, UNI reported.

The beyond visual range missile can lock on to enemy aircraft from ranges above 100 km.

The DRDO had already tested two test versions of the missile for which rs1,000 crore have already been spent.

BY : ZEE NEWS

Riding high on the success of bagging a contract for seven 'Dhruv' helicopters from Ecuador late last month, India's bluechip aviation major Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is now in talks with other South American countries for further export orders.

"We are in negotiations with a couple of South American nations for supplying Dhruv choppers. We hope to finalise the deals with these countries in a month. Two or three countries will be part of our export orders soon," Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Chairman Ashok K Baweja said here today.

BY : Jang Group Online

Four more F-16 fighter aircraft will join the Pakistan Air Force on July 28, 2008. For this purpose, a ceremony for handing over of the planes to the Pakistan Air Force will be held at the PAF Base Mushaf on Saturday.

The four F-16 planes, which are going to be handed over to Pakistan in the last week of the current month, have been upgraded and modified to the extent that they will perform just like new F-16s.

Last month, the Deputy Chief of Air Staff (Operations), Air Marshal Rao Qamar Suleiman, had received four Fighting Falcons from Lt Gen Gary L North, Commander 9th Air Force, and the USAF Central Command while four were received last year.

BY : TNN

Angry with persistent efforts to undermine the credibility of Indian troops deployed in strife-torn Congo, the army said all allegations against its soldiers ranging from gold smuggling and arms trading to even sexual exploitation had been found 'false and baseless'.

Only one incident of 'aberrant behaviour' by three Indian soldiers in the peace-keeping mission in Congo came to light during the probe conducted into the allegations by UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).

The army said disciplinary action had been initiated against the three

BY : PTI

With the Navy on the verge of floating global tenders to buy more submarines, Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta has held discussions with French companies.
In his just concluded official visit to Paris and major French warship and submarine building facilities, Mehta impressed on his French counterpart Admiral Pierre Frances Forissier on the need for speeding up the training of Indian naval personnel on the French Scorpenes submarines.

At the top on the Admiral's itinerary was a visit to the French Navy's key Submarine base of Cherboug, which houses the French Nuclear Submarines as well the drydocks for production of the conventional Scorpene Subs.

BY : ANI

Indian navy added two new warships to its fleet. The Water Jet Fast Attack Crafts (WJFAC) INS Cinque and INS Chariyam were launched by the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE) at the Khidderpore docks here.

The warships are the first part of the 10-ship series, each costing 500 million rupees, to be delivered to the Navy by October 2010.

INS Cinque - named after a pristine Island sanctuary in the Andamans and INS Chariyam - named after an Islet in Lakshadweep, are an improved version of the Fast Attack Crafts with a speed in excess of 35 knots, designed in-house by GRSE.