Category — Aviation & Aerospace

India celebrated its 63rd Republic Day on January  showing off its latest weapons at a military parade in the capital, Delhi. According to the BBC, thousands of people turned up at Rajpath (King’s Avenue) to watch the parade amid tight security. More than 25,000 policemen and paramilitary forces guarded the streets of Delhi and snipers were deployed on high-rise buildings.

The president, Pratibha Patil and the Prime Minster Dr. Manmohan Singh attended the show with the chief guest, Thailand’s  Prime Minister Ms. Yingluck Shinawatra.  Security was tight across India and thousands of policemen have been deployed in major cities and towns.

Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand's Prime Minister (on left, in skirt) with Pratibha Patil, India's President (on right)

Today in California,  I am attending a celebration of Republic Day in San Francisco, hosted by Consul General Parthasarthi and his wife.

More photos from the parade in Delhi, hot off the press courtesy of India’s information bureau

ALH or Advanced Light Helicopters operated by India's Army

India's BSF or Border Security Force, shows off their motorbike skills

India's Defense R&D lab has designed and built this Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Rustom 1

According to the annual review of the news of 2011, Foreign Policy, ranked India at #1 in its list of Top Ten Stories you may have missed.

Comparing to China, the magazine said, India isn’t the only Asian giant investing heavily in new military hardware. India has kept pace with its neighbor to the north and, in some areas, is actually exceeding it — a development that, though much less noted, is a sign of the growing militarization of the region as a new generation of emerging powers with global ambitions jockeys for regional supremacy.

The publication chose to highlight India’s maritime power push. “India is focusing on sea power, a crucial new area of competition. The country is planning to spend almost $45 billion over the next 20 years on 103 new warships, including destroyers and nuclear submarines. By comparison, China’s investment over the same period is projected to be around $25 billion for 135 vessels.”  And it went to point out to its readers that for now, the United States seems much more comfortable with India’s military ambitions than China’s.

What this means

Even among the readership of an elite international publication, the awareness of India’s changing role in both the global strategic arena and the defense procurement landscape is not fully appreciated.

Number six of the six C-130J Super Hercules ordered by India, under the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS)  program, departed Lockheed’s Marietta,Georgia facility  on December 15. This aircraft, like its five predecessors, was delivered ahead of schedule and under budget, according to the supplier. Lockheed’s win was  the first large order placed on an American OEM by India’s Ministry of Defence in decades.

Lockheed is hopeful of a follow-on order of another six planes that would put the overall value of the two deals at close to two billion dollars.

According to NewKerala.com, in the aftermath of the 6.8 magnitude earthquake last September, a C-130J was the first of the planes to fly to the nearest air base in Baghdogra in West Bengal, carrying relief supplies and National Disaster Management Force members, within a flying time of under three hours. It also did several more sorties to carry relief material for the victims of the earthquake.

I’ve flown over a dozen airlines to and from India in just the last five years ranging from Singapore Air, Eva Air, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Lufthansa, British Air, Korean Airlines , Malaysian Airways,  KLM, United, and American Air. Since I live in California,  I have not had the chance to fly on Continental from Newark or Delta from JFK. The attraction of flying on a US carrier and consolidating frequent flyer miles is high.  I took the American Airlines non stop flight between Chicago and New Delhi a number of times. Sadly AA never put its best planes or friendliest crews on this segment. Even in Business Class, I received frowns upon asking for water, the seats would not flat and they tried to sell me an $80 device just so I could charge my laptop. (Singapore offers electrical outlets in economy plus!).

My seat neighbor on one incident was  a Dallas exective who was required to fly AA by his company and he said he made the trip 6-8 times a year. And hated it.  Today AA announced that they would stop flying the ORD-DEL segment. Frequent travelers to India won’t miss them, sadly. I sure hope that Delta/United pick up the gates from AA. And here is my vote from Delta non-stops from LAX to DEL.

A six-pound satellite, designed and built by a team of 50 students at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur was placed into orbit on October 12th by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C18 (PSLV-C18) of the India’s Space Research Organization (ISRO). Named Jugnu (firefly), the satellite is just about four inches long.

Jugnu’s ejection system, which separates the satellite from the launch vehicle and places it in a precise orbit, will be the subject of a patent to be filed by IIT Kanpur via ISRO. Jugnu cast such a spell on students that some of them shunned tempting job offers just to stay with the project, recalls Project Leader and Mechanical Engineering Professor Nalinaksh S. Vyas.

Shashank Chintalagiri, a physics major, elaborating on his experiences as a project member, told NDTV ” We were initially torn between ISRO’s ‘right way’ of doing things and a more practical approach that we could fit in our small size and weight. “Eventually, we decided to go ahead and design our system, taking cues from other nanosatellites built around the world. …We were able to combine technology used in daily life . . . with the design principles of space technology,” Chintalagiri added.

The 3.5 watt orbiter will conduct remote sensing to map land use and cover, agriculture, soils, forestry, city planning, archaeological investigations and is expected to have a useful life of one year.