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Monday, December 7, 2009

Astrosat all set to be launched next year: Isro

India’s first science satellite Astrosat is all set to be launched next year, former chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Madhavan Nair said today.

One more satellite ‘Aditya’ to study Sun’s coronal mass ejection (CME) would be launched in two years while the science mission to planet Mars by 2013, Nair said, addressing a galaxy of scientists from India and abroad and the student community at the Grand Finale function of Bhabha Centenary celebrations, which concluded today.

The multi-wavelength astronomy mission Astrosat on an Indian remote sensing satellite-class satellite in a 650-km, near-equatorial orbit would be launched next year, he said, adding it will be launched by the Indian launch vehicle PSLV from the Sriharikota launchpad. The expected operating life time of the satellite will be of five years.

‘Adiyta’ will be launched in next two years to study the properties of CMEs, that are gigantic bubbles of electrified gas that billow away from the Sun.
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Telangana remains paralysed, TRS chief continues fast

Normal life remained paralysed on Monday in Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh for the second successive day as Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao's fast-unto-death entered the ninth day.
Barring use of force by police and paramilitary forces at Osmania University in which some students and journalists were injured and protesters pelting stones on a train, injuring ten security personnel were injured, the second day of the 48-hour shutdown called by TRS demanding a separate state of Telangana passed off peacefully.
Life came to a standstill in Hyderabad and nine other districts of Telangana as buses of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) remained off the roads while road and rail  blockades by the protesters affected vehicular and train traffic.
All educational institutions, shops, business establishments, cinema theatres and petrol pumps remained closed in Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana.
Widespread protests, rallies, and sit-ins by the protesters marked the shutdown. Students, lawyers, government employees and workers of Singareni Collieries joined the protest.
The movement of trains was hit as hundreds of protesters squatted on the tracks in  Karimnagar and Warangal districts. The New Delhi-bound AP Express and Rajdhani Express were among the dozen trains stopped by the protesters in the two districts.
Ten personnel of Railway Protection Force were injured when protesters pelted stone on the Kerala Express near Uppal railway station in Karimnagar.
Police and paramilitary forces used force to quell student protests at Osmania University. Some journalists were also injured.
Rapid Action Force (RAF) and police personnel baton-charged students on the campus to foil their plans to take out a rally to the state assembly.
Armed security personnel who entered the campus in the morning chased students to a neighbouring area and attacked them. A police officer said the students were pelting stones.
Student leaders who were on a hunger strike also received the blows, as did some journalists covering the protests.
About 15 students and five journalists were injured in the police action, triggering angry reaction from Telangana sympathisers.
Following a strong protest by journalists, the government ordered an inquiry and transferred Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Stephen Ravindra.
The State Human Right Commission has also initiated a probe.
TRS members tried to stall the proceedings of state assembly, which began its winter session Monday, demanding that it pass a resolution for carving out a separate Telangana. The house was adjourned after paying tributes to former chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who died in  a helicopter crash Sep 2.
The ruling Congress party agreed to discuss Telangana issue but rejected the TRS demand for passing a resolution.
In Delhi, Congress party spokesman Manish Tiwari said the party was not against a separate Telangana and it was trying to evolve a consensus on the issue. He advised TRS chief to adopt a  reasonable approach and not to precipitate matters.
State Congress chief D. Srinivas left for New Delhi to apprise party president Sonia Gandhi of the situation arising out of the hunger strike by Chandrasekhara Rao.
Congress legislators from Telangana region also met here to discuss their strategy in view of the ongoing movement.
Meanwhile, KCR, as the TRS chief is popularly known, continued his fast unto death at the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) here.
Doctors at NIMS said KCR was stable but had become very weak as he has not been taking food for the past nine days.
Chief Minister K. Rosaiah personally went to NIMS Sunday night to persuade the TRS chief to end the fast but the latter made it clear that he would not call it off unless a decision was taken on carving out a separate Telangana.
Rosaiah, who was accompanied by Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) president Ajit Singh and state health minister D. Nagender, told KCR that the central government was seized of the Telangana issue but the TRS chief demanded that the state assembly pass a resolution.
KCR was arrested Nov 29 by the police near Karimnagar town when he was heading to Siddipet town in Medak district for launching a fast unto death. He was taken to Khammam town, where a court sent him to jail for 14 days.

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UN climate summit opens amid calls for early action

A crucial UN climate summit opened here today amid calls for "early action" to combat the threat and with the hope that emission reductions promised by key countries had put the world closer to a global warming
control pact.

US President Barack Obama, Indian PM Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao are among the 110 heads of state and government attending the final leg of the summit raising hopes for a stronger political resolve to tackle global warming.

"This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we got a new and better one. If we ever do," conference president Connie Hedegaard said adding, key to an agreement is finding a way to channel public and private funds to poor countries to help them fight the effects of climate change.

At the beginning of the meet, a short film was screened showing children of the future facing an apocalypse if world leaders failed to act today.

"There will be hundreds of millions of refugees," R K Pachauri, the head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in the clip.

Addressing the delegates from 192 countries, Pachauri stressed that years of dedicated work by the scientific community showed that "the evidence is now overwhelming that the world would benefit greatly from early action and that delay would only lead to costs in economic and human terms that would become progressively high."

He also slammed the so-called 'climategate', or the theft of some emails from experts at a British university, which were seized on by climate sceptics as evidence that scientists distorted data to dramatise the threat of global warming.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen told the opening ceremony that the world is looking to the conference to safeguard the future of the mankind.

"For the next two weeks, Copenhagen will be Hopenhagen. By the end, we must be able to deliver back to the world what was granted us here today: hope for a better future."

Along with 15,000 delegates, more than 100 world leaders including US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao will attend the 12-day summit for which security has been beefed up.

Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC executive secretary, said there was unprecedented political momentum to clinch an ambitious deal but countries needed to negotiate harder.

"Time is up," de Boer said. "Over the next two weeks nations have to deliver".

The first week of the conference will focus on the text of a draft treaty. Major decisions may await arrival of the environment ministers next week and the heads of state in the final days of the meet, which ends on December 18.

As the first commitment period for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, would expire in 2012, the international community would endeavour to map out a plan for binding emissions cuts for the second commitment period from 2012 to 2020 at Copenhagen.

Delegates must craft a blueprint for tackling manmade "greenhouse" gases and put together a funding mechanism for helping poor nations fight climate change.
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Russia supports India's claim for permanent UNSC seat

Terming India a "deserving candidate", Russia today backed its claim for a permanent membership in an expanded United Nations Security Council reflecting present-day realities.
"Russia views India as one of the deserving candidates for the seat of permanent member in the expanded UNSC," says a joint declaration signed here after summit talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The two sides also reiterated their intention to strengthen their cooperation on the issues concerning the reforms of UN and its Security Council.
"The UNSC reform should be carried out in a way to reflect the modern-day realities and make this organisation more representative and effective in resolving the existing and emerging tasks," the Indo-Russian declaration said.
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India's rise as superpower in our interest: Mauritius Prez

Mauritius President Anerood Jugnauth today said his country has an "unbreakable blood relationship" with India and wants it to become a super power.

"We in our country hear about India and China becoming new super powers and we really wish that India must become a super power as soon as possible because it will be in our interest," Jugnauth said while inaugurating a seminar on the development of Bhojpuri language at Banaras Hindu University here.

Calling for an enduring and stronger relationship with New Delhi, he said, "We have an unbreakable blood relationship with India, and so with its development and increasing strength, we will automatically be benefited.

For India to become a super power, he said, a vision and determination is required and if this country moves forward with a vision and determination and fills the gap between the development of urban and rural areas, there is no reason why it can not be a super power.

Citing the example of his own country, Jugnauth said, "at one stage when I first became the Prime Minister of Mauritius in 1982, the entire western world declared us as 'economically unviable' country... but we did not lose hope ...and today we are a fully developed country."

Earlier, the President of Mauritius reached here on a two days' trip in the afternoon, from Lucknow.

During his visit to the holy city, he will attend the Bhojpuri literature and art exhibition functions.
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Air defence

Air defence

India's Advanced Air Defense (AAD) interceptor missile
9K22 Tunguska.
Anti-ballistic missile
Surface to air missile Systems
  • Akash- 2 Squadrons are being inducted right now
  • SA-6 Gainful- The Indian Army has sought to upgrade its SA-6 Kvadrat and SA-8 Missile systems whilst the Akash gets ready. The Indian magazine "Strategic Affairs " (No. 0011/ Issue: December 16) noted: "Poland has won an order worth $200 m from India to upgrade 100 Kvadrat (SA6) and 50 OSA-AKM (SA8) mobile surface to air missiles. The contract made public in August, is to be completed by 2002. The upgrades include integration of new radars, communications and control systems, improvements to the launch vehicle including new power packs. The Kvadrat upgrade includes new electronics for better electronic counter measures, passive infra-red search and track sensors."
  • SA-10 [9]
  • Trishul- Under Trials. Due to delays in the Trishul missile program the OSA-AKM / SA-8b Gecko air defence systems are being upgraded. Cancelled due to cost of production.[10]
  • SA-8 Gecko- In Service
  • SA-13 Gopher- In Service
MANPADS
Air Defense Artillery

Surface to surface missiles

BrahMos at the Indian Republic Day Parade
  • BrahMos Land Attack Cruise Missile- In Service [12][13]
  • Prithvi-I Short Range Ballistic Missile (150 km) - In Service
  • Prithvi II 250 km range with a payload of 500 kg- In Service
  • Agni-I Medium Range Ballistic Missile (700 km)- In Service
  • Agni-II Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (2000 - 2500 km)- In Service
  • Agni-III IRBM (3500 km)- Ready for induction
  • Agni-V ICBM (5000-6,000 km)-Under Development.[14]

Non-combat vehicles

[edit] Engineering Vehicles

  • Bridge Layer Tank using a T-72 chassis and Kartik Armoured Bridgelayer on a Vijayanta chassis - armoured vehicle-launched bridges
  • Multi-Hop and Extended Span Assault Bridges on T-72 chassis
  • Sarvatra - 8x8 truck-mounted bridging system
  • VT-72B ARV (200+) and WZT-3 ARV (124, 228 to be delivered by 2007) - armoured recovery vehicle replacing the Vijayanta ARV
  • BMP-2 Armoured Amphibious Dozer and Engineer Reconnaissance Vehicle (AERV) & AAD

Mine protected vehicles

  • Casspir - (165 In Service) mine protected vehicles
  • CVRDE MPV Type I- Heavy armour and Type- II for Light armour (300 in service)

Logistic vehicles

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Equipment of the Indian Army

Handguns

Micro Tavor (Zittara)
AK-103 produced under license by Indian arms manufacturer.
M4 of the Indian Army.
Nag missile and the Nag missile carrier (NAMICA).

Sub-machine guns and carbines

 

Assault rifles


Grenades

  • Multi Mode Grenade Shivalik

Sniper rifles


Machine guns


Projectile launchers

Anti-Tank Guided Missiles

Nag was cleared for production on 1st week of July 2009
A large order was recently placed for a shipment of FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Guided Missiles as of September 2009.


Remotely Operated Vehicles

DRDO Daksh IED handling robot


Armoured vehicles

A T-90 Bhishma tank on display.
.

Main Battle Tanks

  • Arjun MBT Mk1 - main battle tanks (45+). The Army has ordered production of this tank and the first batch of 53 of the ordered 124 tanks has already rolled out of the Avadi factory and are currently being put through trials to check the quality control of the production process. The remaining tanks will follow thereafter. Indian Army raised First Arjun Regiment. 79 more to join before December 2009. 12 pre-production and 12 of limited series production are already with Army.
  • T-90S Bhishma - main battle tanks (667). Over 1000 (excluding 347 plus 310 Russian-made T-90) more T-90S will be manufactured in India by 2020. India signed a new contract for 347 additional T-90 tanks from Russia, total of 1657 within 2020.
  • T-72 M1 (2485+)[4] 968 T72M1 have been upgraded by the Heavy vehicles factory (HVF), While requests for proposal for upgrading approximately 1000 other T-72's have been sent to various firms in Israel, Russia, Poland and France.
  • T-55 (900): Some of the T-55 tanks will be attached to infantry brigades and battalions as Tarmour AFV's since despite their vintage, the 105 mm L7 gun has substantial firepower.[4]
  • Vijayanta -(1800) Reserve--- 800 of these have been heavily upgraded. 100 converted to Catapult self propelled 130mm gun

Armoured fighting vehicles

Indian BMP-2 on maneuver
  • BMP-1 (700) and BMP-2 (1500+)Sarath -(AFV) mechanised infantry combat vehicles relegated the OT-62/64 to mortar carriers. The BMP-2 are now being modernized with TISAS (thermal imaging stand alone sights), better fire control, and more modern ATGM armament (Konkurs M). BMP-1 has been phased out and the upgraded BMP-2 is BMP-2 M with two thermobaric missiles and two tandem warhead Konkurs missiles. Its also has an integrated TI sight, an LRF, and has an AGL mounted on the turret which is also stabilised in the horizontal plane. 100 gets added each year. To enhance the rate to 125 a year.
  • CMT Carrier Mortar Tracked 198 (~200) produced by CVRDE. NAMICA (13) started production. Both BMP-II based
Casspir Mine Resistant Armoured Vehicles
  • Casspir Mine Resistant Armoured Vehicles from South Africa. 165 in number.
  • Aditya Mine Resistant Armoured Vehicle from OFBIndia. 300+ in service (1400 to be produced. 20 getting manufactured each month at HVF, Medak)
  • WZT-3 (352 so far) Armored Recovery Vehicles from Poland
  • Kroton (80 in numbers) De-mining Vehicles from Poland
  • Hydremma Mine clearing Vehicles MCV manufactured by OFB India
  • BTR-60 BTR-60P *BTR-152 & BTR-50P APC 817 in numbers.
  • OT-64 SKOT APC 157 in numbers
  • BRDM-2 (255), Ferret (100) amphibious reconnaissance vehicles from CVRDE. Armed with anti-tank missiles.
  • PRP-3 or BMP-M1975 SMALL FRED Battlefield Surveillance Radar based on BMP.
  • FV432 APC from UK 80 in numbers
Mahindra AXE
  • FV101 Scorpion & Vijayanta ARV [ 200 in numbers] in service
  • Total APC (wheeled, Tracked) is around 4000 plus in service.
  • Takshak (TATA truck based) APC, Rakshak-Windy-Striker-Bolero-Gypsy all jeep based APC armed with anti-tank missiles, 106 MM RCL Jeep Mounted armoured Personnel carrier in service.
  • Swaraj Mazda armoured trucks
  • AAD- Armoured Amphibious Dozer & AERV- Armoured Engineering Reccee Vehicle by OFB India started production.
  • TGERV - Trishul Ground Electronics & Radar Vehicle by OFB India
  • BMP II based Trishul SAM carrier to be manufactured
  • BMP II based AKASH SAM carrier production started.
  • BMP II based 105mm Light tank to be manufactured
  • BMP II based NBC protected recon vehicle to be manufactured
  • Unmannaed Ground Vehicle to be manufactured
  • Mahindra Axe Light support vehicle to be purchased
  • TATA Light Specilist Vehicle - LSV with LMG, MMG to be purchased
  • Viper Fast movement vehicle disgned created by Sree Lakshmi ltd for the army and special forces -currently under trials
  • windy fast attack vehicle in service from 2005.(more than 700 produced)

Artillery

An Indian Bofors 155 mm howitzer field gun being repositioned during the war.
  • Under Field Artillery Rationalization Plan, Indian Army plans to procure 3000 to 4000 155 mm Towed, Wheeled and Tracked Artillery Systems.[5][6]
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Towed artillery

  • 155 mm Bofors Haubits FH77/A Out of 410, 100 are NOT in working state.
  • 155mm Soltam M68
  • M-46 130 mm field guns replacing the 105 mm IFG Mk1/2/3
  • 122 mm D-30 towed howitzers (To be phased out)
  • 105 mm Light Field Gun (To be phased out)
  • 105 mm Indian Field Gun (To be phased out)
  • Metamorphosis 155 mm GUN by upgrading present M46 130 mm with a maximum range of 39 k.m.180 has been already converted to 155 mm Guns
  • 130 mm towed field gun M1954 (M-46)

Self propelled artillery

Self propelled artillery
  • FV433 Abbot SPG 80 approx in number (105 mm) and M-46 Catapult 100 approx in number(130 mm)& 70 in reserve to be replaced by 3600 new 155 mm self-propelled howitzers by 2025. On the short list is the Denel LIW T6 turreted Arjun and the Celsius (Bofors) FH-77AD[5][6] The Polish licensed version of the AS-90 self-propelled artillery is also considered [also called KRAB].
  • Bhim-Initial reports that the Arjun hull might be used with a 155 mm self-propelled howitzer by fitting the South African T6 turret which has the G5 howitzer fitted, proved to be misfounded. The SPH would be integrated at Bharat Earth Movers Ltd, which would manufacture additional Arjun chassis & hulls for the purpose. At present, the Bhim SPH program is in limbo, since Denel has been temporarily blacklisted by the Indian Ministry of Defence, while corruption charges are being investigated. The HVF (OFB) has been ordered for serial production of 100 BHIM.
  • 2S1 Gvozdika 122mm SPGH from Poland...... 110 getting supplied by Poland Bumar manufacturer
  • KRAB 155mm SPGH from Poland

Multiple rocket launchers

9A52-2 "Smerch" launch vehicle
  • Smerch 9K58 MBRL (38) - 300 mm multiple rocket launch system. Further order for 24 units will be completed by 2010.Total 3 regiments created [7]
  • Pinaka MBRL (80)- 214 mm multiple rocket launch system replacing the 122 mm BM-21. 80 launchers to be inducted by 2009.Already 3 regiments inducted [8]
  • BM-21 (150+) - Modernized rockets with range of 40 km was purchased from Russia. To be replaced by

                            
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