I approached the bund in second gear and as the tank negotiated it, I saw Deepak descending from the top in free fall, headed for Mother Earth, and disappearing under the tank while I reflexively pressed the brake pedal.

It was after India’s second nuclear test in May 1998 that the India-France relationship warmed up. One major catalyst for this was that at a time when many nations were judgemental about India’s test, France’s stand was that it was India’s prerogative to conduct such a test based on the threats it faced.

While the British conferred the DSO (Distinguished Service Order) on Meher Singh, the Indian Air Force awarded him the MVC (Maha Vir Chakra). The citation for the MVC awarded to Mehar Singh read “Throughout his tenure as overall Commander of air operations in Jammu and Kashmir, Air Commodore Mehar Singh showed great devotion to duty at great…

During the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) operations in Sri Lanka, 44 Squadron played a crucial role in transporting men and material, including T-72 tanks and artillery guns, in the early hours of 30 July 1987, greatly contributing to the airlift effort.

This approximately two-and-a-half-hour operation between Wadi Sayyidna and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia will go down in the annals of IAF history for its sheer audacity and flawless execution - akin to that carried out in Kabul, in which almost 400 Indians were brought back by the IAF in August 2021 in very challenging conditions following the Taliban…

Since the late 1970s, the Indian Army has been paying a heavy price of losing good soldiers in asymmetric warfare waged by Pakistan, which involves having large bodies of regular troops committed on the ground for dealing with a 'handful' of the enemy.

But New Delhi must not be complacent, because a lot more needs to be done in acquisitions and modernisation to match the much larger and more sophisticated Chinese arsenal and to raise India’s politico-diplomatic assertiveness against Beijing's muscle-flexing.

Whatever has been achieved by BRO in 2022 and early 2023 is very substantial and has raised Beijing's ire much more. For India, it is imperative to continue the momentum of its long overdue building of strategic infrastructure, because a lot more needs to be done to match PLA’s buildup and deployment.

The CPC-PLA combo’s very smart use of bullet-less border management agreements, incursions/transgressions, and building villages along the LAC is continuing because the Indian Army is following bullet-less methods initiated by the Chinese even after losing 20 soldiers including a colonel by PLA’s brutal and barbaric attack in June 2020.

The newly developed missile, fired from a canister, can make precise manoeuvres before impacting a target.