Regarding the Stupid White Men

Glib

You Idiot..

How dare you accuse me of not using `Numbers` I have put up the entire Bharat Rhakshak website up here you idiot... Its your fault for not reading the numbers etc...

I don`t believe this... Is lying a national vocation in india?

Glib

Your argument is convoluted.

Unlike you and your stupid compatriots I am the only one who has put up verifiable figures with verifiable sources...

Yet you chaps love to explain away everything... Typical Indian I suppose!

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Indian predilection to irrelevancy never ceases to amaze me...

Now that Arjunm sees clearly that on the argument of PAF vs IAF , I have clearly proved people wrong by Quoting Indian sources.. he is now trying to change the topic altogether...

Well done Indians... !

Arjunm,

These are the stupidest questions...

1) I agree Beating an outnumbered civil war ridden army is a great triumph for an army like India... I give you credit there...

2) Officially Pakistan wasn`t even involved. However, the casualty figures are well known for Kargil. Kargil has been described as tactically brilliant but strategically naive.

3) Pakistan doesn`t aim to take Siachen. That war is the war of costs ... and you are incurring a lot of it. As for Kashmir, Pakistan`s strategy has been debated on these boards many time. Go read.

I am glad that you have admitted that India is an aggressor and is unlawfully committing aggression in Kashmir and Siachen. That you are so proud of it shows the mentality of the Indian.. I suppose thousands of years of inferiority complex can not be reversed by a few years of power and mythical superiority of the almighty indian that your government strives to create.

Dear YLH:

We all know you detest numbers. But, do all of us here a big favor: show us the the benefit of your superior education by refuting the below:

Furthermore Air Marshal Khan writes that in a 19 month period from January 1997 (i.e. up to 31 July 1998) the PAF flew 110,000 hours and suffered 11 major accidents. An attrition rate of 1 per 10,000 hours.

...

While we do not know the exact number of flying hours for the IAF in that 19 month period we can use flying hours from the years 1997-1998 to 1998-1999 to come up a with a reasonable estimate. In 1997/98 the IAF logged 306,190 hours and in 1998/99 it logged 311,412 hours. For the sake of argument we can extrapolate that the IAF logged 181,657 hours during the first 7 months of 1998. Hence for the 19 month period beginning Jan 1997 the IAF logged a total 487,847 hours. During this period the IAF suffered 16 major accidents (7 in 1997 + 9 in first seven months of 1998). This translates into a loss rate of 0.32 per 10,000 hours. Thus as IAF, as a service, suffered an attrition rate that is less than a third of the Pakistan Air Force`s during 1997-1998.

...

This by the way is from a Bharat Rakshak Monitor article that you refuse to acknowledge. Note that the Monitor is an online journal, not a free-for-all forum.

According to the numbers I have given above, PAF logged in about 110,000 in a 19 month period between Jan 97 and Jul 98. That works out to about 69,000 hours a year. I am sure you know the approximate number of PAF fighter pilots (1,000-1,200) and can figure out how much flying time each is getting (60-70 hrs). Please let me know if my theory about Rooh Afza sipping Paki shaheens was off the mark?

For extra credit, try to figure out what kind of hours IAF pilots were logging.

P.S. Don`t bother us with random quotes. try to argue on the basis of numbers.

All the best and good luck!

Two Cheers for Colonialism

By DINESH D`SOUZA

Colonialism has gotten a bad name in recent decades. Anticolonialism was one



ALSO SEE:

Colloquy Live: Join a live, online discussion with Dinesh D`Souza about his essay in defense of colonialism on Thursday, May 9, at 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern time.





of the dominant political currents of the 20th century, as dozens of European colonies in Asia and Africa became free. Today we are still living with the aftermath of colonialism. Apologists for terrorism, including Osama bin Laden, argue that terrorist acts are an understandable attempt on the part of subjugated non-Western peoples to lash out against their longtime Western oppressors. Activists at last year`s World Conference on Racism, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, have called on the West to pay reparations for slavery and colonialism to minorities and natives of the third world.

These justifications of violence, and calls for monetary compensation, rely on a large body of scholarship that has been produced in the Western academy. That scholarship, which goes by the name of anticolonial studies, postcolonial studies, or subaltern studies, is now an intellectual school in itself, and it exercises a powerful influence on the humanities and social sciences. Its leading Western scholars include Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Walter Rodney, and Samir Amin. Their arguments are supported by the ideas of third-world intellectuals like Wole Soyinka, Chinweizu, Ashis Nandy, and, perhaps most influential of all, Frantz Fanon.

The assault against colonialism and its legacy has many dimensions, but at its core it is a theory of oppression that relies on three premises: First, colonialism and imperialism are distinctively Western evils that were inflicted on the non-Western world. Second, as a consequence of colonialism, the West became rich and the colonies became impoverished; in short, the West succeeded at the expense of the colonies. Third, the descendants of colonialism are worse off than they would be had colonialism never occurred.

In a widely used text, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, the Marxist scholar Walter Rodney accuses European colonialism of ``draining African wealth and making it impossible to develop more rapidly the resources of the continent.`` The African writer Chinweizu strikes a similar note in his influential book The West and the Rest of Us. He offers the following explanation for African poverty: ``White hordes have sallied forth from their Western homelands to assault, loot, occupy, rule, and exploit the world. Even now the fury of their expansionist assault on the rest of us has not abated.`` In his classic work The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon writes, ``European opulence has been founded on slavery. The well-being and progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians, and the yellow races.``

Those notions are pervasive and emotionally appealing. By suggesting that the West became dominant because it is oppressive, they provide an explanation for Western global dominance without encouraging white racial arrogance. They relieve the third world of blame for its wretchedness. Moreover, they imply politically egalitarian policy solutions: The West is in possession of the ``stolen goods`` of other cultures, and it has a moral and legal obligation to make some form of repayment. I was raised to believe in such things, and among most third-world intellectuals they are articles of faith. The only problem is that they are not true.

There is nothing uniquely Western about colonialism. My native country of India, for example, was ruled by the British for more than two centuries, and many of my fellow Indians are still smarting about that. What they often forget, however, is that before the British came, the Indians had been invaded and conquered by the Persians, the Afghans, Alexander the Great, the Mongols, the Arabs, and the Turks. Depending on how you count, the British were preceded by at least six colonial powers that invaded and occupied India since ancient times. Indeed, ancient India was itself settled by the Aryan people, who came from the north and subjugated the dark-skinned indigenous people.

Those who identify colonialism and empire only with the West either have no sense of history or have forgotten about the Egyptian empire, the Persian empire, the Macedonian empire, the Islamic empire, the Mongol empire, the Chinese empire, and the Aztec and Inca empires in the Americas. Shouldn`t the Arabs be paying reparations for their destruction of the Byzantine and Persian empires? Come to think of it, shouldn`t the Byzantine and Persian people be paying reparations to the descendants of the people they subjugated? And while we`re at it, shouldn`t the Muslims reimburse the Spaniards for their 700-year rule?

As the example of Islamic Spain suggests, the people of the West have participated in the game of conquest not only as the perpetrators, but also as the victims. Ancient Greece, for example, was conquered by Rome, and the Roman Empire itself was destroyed by invasions of Huns, Vandals, Lombards, and Visigoths from northern Europe. America, as we all know, was itself a colony of England before its war of independence; England, before that, had been subdued and ruled by Normans from France. Those of us living today are taking on a large project if we are going to settle on a rule of social justice based on figuring out whose ancestors did what to whom.

The West did not become rich and powerful through colonial oppression. It makes no sense to claim that the West grew rich and strong by conquering other countries and taking their stuff. How did the West manage to do that? In the late Middle Ages, say 1500, the West was by no means the world`s most affluent or most powerful civilization. Indeed, those of China and of the Arab-Islamic world exceeded the West in wealth, in knowledge, in exploration, in learning, and in military power. So how did the West gain so rapidly in economic, political, and military power that, by the 19th century, it was able to conquer virtually all of the other civilizations? That question demands to be answered, and the oppression theorists have never provided an adequate explanation.

Moreover, the West could not have reached its current stage of wealth and influence by stealing from other cultures, for the simple reason that there wasn`t very much to take. ``Oh yes there was,`` the retort often comes. ``The Europeans stole the raw material to build their civilization. They took rubber from Malaya, cocoa from West Africa, and tea from India.`` But as the economic historian P.T. Bauer points out, before British rule, there were no rubber trees in Malaya, no cocoa trees in West Africa, no tea in India. The British brought the rubber tree to Malaya from South America. They brought tea to India from China. And they taught the Africans to grow cocoa, a crop the native people had never heard of. None of this is to deny that when the colonialists could exploit native resources, they did. But that larceny cannot possibly account for the enormous gap in economic, political, and military power that opened up between the West and the rest of the world.

What, then, is the source of that power? The reason the West became so affluent and dominant in the modern era is that it invented three institutions: science, democracy, and capitalism. All those institutions are based on universal impulses and aspirations, but those aspirations were given a unique expression in Western civilization.

Consider science. It is based on a shared human trait: the desire to know. People in every culture have tried to learn about the world. Thus the Chinese recorded the eclipses, the Mayans developed a calendar, the Hindus discovered the number zero, and so on. But science -- which requires experiments, laboratories, induction, verification, and what one scholar has called ``the invention of invention,`` the scientific method -- that is a Western institution. Similarly, tribal participation is universal, but democracy -- which involves free elections, peaceful transitions of power, and separation of powers -- is a Western idea. Finally, the impulse to trade is universal, and there is nothing Western about the use of money, but capitalism -- which requires property rights, contracts, courts to enforce them, limited-liability corporations, stock exchanges, patents, insurance, double-entry bookkeeping -- this ensemble of practices was developed in the West.

It is the dynamic interaction among these three Western institutions -- science, democracy, and capitalism -- that has produced the great wealth, strength, and success of Western civilization. An example of this interaction is technology, which arises out of the marriage between science and capitalism. Science provides the knowledge that leads to invention, and capitalism supplies the mechanism by which the invention is transmitted to the larger society, as well as the economic incentive for inventors to continue to make new things.

Now we can understand better why the West was able, between the 16th and 19th centuries, to subdue the rest of the world and bend it to its will. Indian elephants and Zulu spears were no match for British rifles and cannonballs. Colonialism and imperialism are not the cause of the West`s success; they are the result of that success. The wealth and power of European nations made them arrogant and stimulated their appetite for global conquest. Colonial possessions added to the prestige, and to a much lesser degree the wealth, of Europe. But the primary cause of Western affluence and power is internal -- the institutions of science, democracy, and capitalism acting together. Consequently, it is simply wrong to maintain that the rest of the world is poor because the West is rich, or that the West grew rich off stolen goods from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The West created its own wealth, and still does.

The descendants of colonialism are better off than they would be if colonialism had never happened. I would like to illustrate this point through a personal example. While I was a young boy, growing up in India, I noticed that my grandfather, who had lived under British colonialism, was instinctively and habitually antiwhite. He wasn`t just against the English; he was generally against white people. I realized that I did not share his antiwhite animus. That puzzled me: Why did he and I feel so differently?

Only years later, after a great deal of reflection and a fair amount of study, did the answer finally hit me. The reason for our difference of perception was that colonialism had been pretty bad for him, but pretty good for me. Another way to put it was that colonialism had injured those who lived under it, but paradoxically it proved beneficial to their descendants. Much as it chagrins me to admit it -- and much as it will outrage many third-world intellectuals for me to say it -- my life would have been much worse had the British never ruled India.

How is that possible? Virtually everything that I am, what I do, and my deepest beliefs, all are the product of a worldview that was brought to India by colonialism. I am a writer, and I write in English. My ability to do this, and to reach a broad market, is entirely thanks to the British. My understanding of technology, which allows me, like so many Indians, to function successfully in the modern world, was largely the product of a Western education that came to India as a result of the British. So also my beliefs in freedom of expression, in self-government, in equality of rights under the law, and in the universal principle of human dignity -- they are all the products of Western civilization.

I am not suggesting that it was the intention of the colonialists to give all those wonderful gifts to the Indians. Colonialism was not based on philanthropy; it was a form of conquest and rule. The British came to India to govern, and they were not primarily interested in the development of the natives, whom they viewed as picturesque savages. It is impossible to measure, or overlook, the pain and humiliation that the British inflicted during their long period of occupation. Understandably, the Indians chafed under that yoke. Toward the end of the British reign in India, Mahatma Gandhi was asked, ``What do you think of Western civilization?`` He replied, ``I think it would be a good idea.``

Despite their suspect motives and bad behavior, however, the British needed a certain amount of infrastructure to effectively govern India. So they built roads, shipping docks, railway tracks, irrigation systems, and government buildings. Then they realized that they needed courts of law to adjudicate disputes that went beyond local systems of dispensing justice. And so the British legal system was introduced, with all its procedural novelties, like ``innocent until proven guilty.`` The British also had to educate the Indians, in order to communicate with them and to train them to be civil servants in the empire. Thus Indian children were exposed to Shakespeare, Dickens, Hobbes, and Locke. In that way the Indians began to encounter words and ideas that were unmentioned in their ancestral culture: ``liberty,`` ``sovereignty,`` ``rights,`` and so on.

That brings me to the greatest benefit that the British provided to the Indians: They taught them the language of freedom. Once again, it was not the objective of the colonial rulers to encourage rebellion. But by exposing Indians to the ideas of the West, they did. The Indian leaders were the product of Western civilization. Gandhi studied in England and South Africa; Nehru was a product of Harrow and Cambridge. That exposure was not entirely to the good; Nehru, for example, who became India`s first prime minister after independence, was highly influenced by Fabian socialism through the teachings of Harold Laski. The result was that India had a mismanaged socialist economy for a generation. But my broader point is that the champions of Indian independence acquired the principles, the language, and even the strategies of liberation from the civilization of their oppressors. This was true not just of India but also of other Asian and African countries that broke free of the European yoke.

My conclusion is that against their intentions, the colonialists brought things to India that have immeasurably enriched the lives of the descendants of colonialism. It is doubtful that non-Western countries would have acquired those good things by themselves. It was the British who, applying a universal notion of human rights, in the early 19th century abolished the ancient Indian institution of suttee -- the custom of tossing widows on their husbands` funeral pyres. There is no reason to believe that the Indians, who had practiced suttee for centuries, would have reached such a conclusion on their own. Imagine an African or Indian king encountering the works of Locke or Madison and saying, ``You know, I think those fellows have a good point. I should relinquish my power and let my people decide whether they want me or someone else to rule.`` Somehow, I don`t see that as likely.

Colonialism was the transmission belt that brought to Asia, Africa, and South America the blessings of Western civilization. Many of those cultures continue to have serious problems of tyranny, tribal and religious conflict, poverty, and underdevelopment, but that is not due to an excess of Western influence; rather, it is due to the fact that those countries are insufficiently Westernized. Sub-Saharan Africa, which is probably in the worst position, has been described by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as ``a cocktail of disasters.`` That is not because colonialism in Africa lasted so long, but because it lasted a mere half-century. It was too short a time to permit Western institutions to take firm root. Consequently, after their independence, most African nations have retreated into a kind of tribal barbarism that can be remedied only with more Western influence, not less. Africa needs more Western capital, more technology, more rule of law, and more individual freedom.

The academy needs to shed its irrational prejudice against colonialism. By providing a more balanced perspective, scholars can help to show the foolishness of policies like reparations as well as justifications of terrorism that are based on anticolonial myths. None of this is to say that colonialism by itself was a good thing, only that bad institutions sometimes produce good results. Colonialism, I freely acknowledge, was a harsh regime for those who lived under it. My grandfather would have a hard time giving even one cheer for colonialism. As for me, I cannot manage three, but I am quite willing to grant two. So here they are: two cheers for colonialism! Maybe you will now see why I am not going to be sending an invoice for reparations to Tony Blair.

Dinesh D`Souza is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author, most recently, of What`s So Great About America, to be published this month by Regnery.



http://chronicle.com

Section: The Chronicle Review

Page: B7

IS this the Utopia the liberal/secularist/commies with muslim names striving for?---and yet consider themselves muslims.No wonder they are considered the least educated in countries with 90% ``illiteracy``.Ignorance is not not-knowing but a professional expertise in Satanic agenda.Abu-Jehl was the most ``learned`` scholar of the kuffars....only blind to the TRUTH.Hence Abu-Jehl.

__________________________________________________

Are pedophiles criminals or victims?

Trend toward normalization of pedophilia mirrors psychiatry`s capitulation to the gay agenda

By Hymie Rubenstein

The Interim

The November 20, 2000 Globe and Mail contained a compassionate editorial arguing that convicted pedophiles should not be imprisoned. The essay was written by Dr. John Bradford, who holds two high-sounding psychiatric appointments (Clinical Director of the Forensic Programme and the Sexual Behaviours Clinic at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, and Head of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa), in response to the re-arrest the week before of Peter Robert Whitmore, a three-time convicted pedophile who was found in a Toronto hotel room with a 13-year-old male runaway a month after his latest release from prison.

According to Dr. Bradford, people like Mr. Whitmore should not be incarcerated because, ``that is exorbitantly costly and ridiculously ineffective in curbing the risk to society. The fact is that the vast majority of pedophiles ... are not violent or life-threatening.`` Rather than being criminals, pedophiles are really hapless victims suffering ``a psychiatric disorder`` that is ``the product of a disordered but inescapable sex drive that targets children.``

Haven`t we heard this before? Starting some 40 years ago, many of Dr. Bradford`s peers, together with radical elements within the emerging homosexual lobby, made precisely the same argument when they called for the decriminalization of same-sex erotic behaviour. In 1969, their lobbying paid off when Pierre Trudeau removed the prohibition against buggery from the Criminal Code, arguing that, ``The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.`` Four years later, zealous homosexual activists bullied the influential American Psychiatric Association into taking the next step by re-defining homosexuality as ``a normal condition.``

Today, few battles remain in the war to regularize homosexuality. Four Western European countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Holland) have legalized homosexual marriage. So has the American State of Vermont. With several court challenges to the exclusivity of heterosexual marriage in the works, together with the activist efforts of a gay-friendly Supreme Court, there is no reason to believe that Canada will not soon follow the lead. Dr. Bradford`s editorial suggests that the regularizing of pedophila will not be far behind.

The similarity between homosexuality and pedophilia does not end with my appeal to slippery-slope theory. Dr. Bradford presents no good evidence for calling pedophilia a ``disordered but inescapable sex drive.`` To be sure, most people, myself included, consider pedophilia a heinous crime and unmitigated perversion, not the least because it represents the sexual exploitation of immature and vulnerable children by vile and degenerate people (mainly, but not exclusively, men). But this does not make it a mental disorder, especially when, as Dr. Bradford himself grudgingly acknowledges, most pedophiles do not seek or wish treatment, have no psychiatric ``affliction`` (his term) except a desire to engage in various sexual acts with young children, and otherwise lead happy and fulfilling lives. This is precisely the argument that homosexual activists employed when they fought to have same-sex coupling decriminalized and de-stigmatized.

Using Dr. Bradford`s own assertions, homosexuality and pedophilia present very similar syndromes: both ``afflict`` some three per cent of Canadians; there is no known cause for either orientation, though studies show that a large portion of both homosexuals and pedophiles were sexually molested at some point in their lives; neither ``disorder`` is now generally viewed as a deliberate choice freely made by individuals but rather an ``incurable`` personal ``affliction`` that may be genetically programmed; and unlike other ``psychiatric disorders,`` both homosexuals and pedophiles are typically rational and competent, able to function productively on a day-to-day basis in everything but their ``compulsive`` sexual urges.

Dr. Bradford asks us to accept pedophilia as a ``disorder`` which is ``an inevitable part of human existence.`` NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, whose motto is ``sex by eight or its too late,`` would only qualify Dr. Bradford`s position with the assertion that pedophilia is no disorder at all but a natural, normal, and healthy activity for those who engage in it.

The indifference of the state to same-sex relations between consenting adults as enacted in the 1969 legislation was partly based on the observation that because homosexuals are unable to control their feelings, then the erotic acts they engage in should not be criminalized. This is the argument that Dr. Bradford uses to attack the incarceration of convicted pedophiles. It is also the official position of NAMBLA, which says that when a 60-year-old man sodomizes a 14-year-old boy neither a criminal, nor an immoral, nor an unnatural act has taken place.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Bradford fails to mention the known adverse psychological sequelae of Canada`s age-of-sexual-consent codes. Neither does he relate pedophilia to homosexuality nor acknowledge that a disproportionately high number of homosexuals are also pedophiles. According to a comprehensive review of the scientific literature by William Gairdner (reported in his best-selling book, The War Against the Family, 1992, p. 388), although homosexuals represent no more than four per cent of the U.S. population, they commit between one-third and one-half of all pedophilic acts. Homosexuals and bisexuals are also 12 times more likely to molest children than are heterosexuals, and ``gay`` teachers perpetrate between 25 and 80 per cent of all pupil sexual assaults.

Indeed, Dr. Bradford makes no mention at all of homosexuality in his essay. Like most psychiatrists, he probably accepts that same-sex eroticism is a normal, natural, and healthy form of carnal release. Instead he relates pedophilia to illnesses like diabetes: ``Would we deny a patient with diabetes his insulin? Should we deny pedophiles their appropriate treatment by warehousing them in jail?``

Yet Dr. Bradford says that pedophilia has no known cause, cure, or effective treatment - except surgical or pharmacological castration. Accordingly, one might conclude that the most ``appropriate treatment`` for the condition must be to allow those ``afflicted`` by it to act out their desires - to permit them to engage in all manner of sexual acts with pre-pubescent children. Again, this is the official NAMBLA position.

Because he is preoccupied with the mental health of pedophiles, Dr. Bradford downplays the possible traumatic effects of pedophilia on the object of the pedophile`s desire, except to surmise that some of these children may also become pedophiles while others may find being anally or vaginally penetrated by an adult ``disturbing events.`` Of course, if Dr. Bradford were to admit that many of these abused children also suffer long-term or life-long psychological trauma, his argument against the incarceration of pedophiles would lose its authority.

Nor does Dr. Bradford entertain the possibility that just as there is a distinction in the scientific literature between voluntary and compulsory homosexuality, there are many pedophiles who voluntarily engage in sensual acts with minors because they lack the appropriate social skills or opportunity to attract adult partners or because they are titillated by the illegality or immorality of sex with young children. This is because he uncritically assumes that pedophiles (and presumably non-pedophiles as well) have no control over their sex drive - human nature and their genes make them do it.

This assumption has important moral and legal implications. If people have no control over their drives, sexual or otherwise, then free will does not exist. If free will does not exist, human beings cannot be held responsible for what they do. If people cannot be held responsible for what they do, collective morality and shared norms have little meaning or application. Since most laws, especially those relating to sexuality, represent the formalization of moral norms, then there should be no legal prohibition or punishment of pedophilia. Though this line of reasoning may seem absurd to some, it is still the way some psychiatrists try to explain away the behaviour of their ``disordered`` patients.

My point is this: if pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder, then so is homosexuality. If homosexuality is a natural, normal, and healthy part of the human condition, then so is pedophilia. If homosexuality has no victims, neither does pedophila. If both are inborn and psychologically unproblematic for their participants, then why is this not also true for other erotic activities such as incest, bestiality, and necrophilia?

Is there any hard psychiatric evidence to refute these assertions? Or is Dr. Bradford`s essay yet another example of the disordered nature of modern clinical psychiatry?

Hymie Rubenstein is a Professor of Anthropology at

the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

Typical Indian way of arguing..

One will make a stupid baseless statement other will agree, then the third one will come and pat him on the back...

Rsidhar and Alephnull ladies and gentlemen.. a round of applause for them...

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

http://www.defencejournal.com/feb-mar99/flight-safety.htm

Flight Saftey Vs Combat Readiness

With all the claims of combat readiness and a large fleet of varied origins such as the EX Soviet (Russian), the French and British origin, the aging fleet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) continues to remain a source of worry for the Indian military aviation planners and political leadership. Although the number of aircraft on the inventory of the IAF is awesome, the biting teeth or the cutting edge may not be there given the realities on the ground. Services Headquarters normally do not make public facts and figures pertaining to the detail of flight safety and serviceability rate of aircraft, military analyst and defence journalist do get to know things using their sources to reach meaningful conclusions. For example the details of a crash for any reason may never surface, but the crash itself cannot remain hidden and will be reported in the press. According to the figures appearing in the Indian Press, the IAF lost 63 pilots between 1991 and 1997 as a result of crashes. The number of aircraft lost was 147. Since 1997 till todate there have been another 25 crashes, the recent being on 27th November 1998. According to the analysts, this is a very grim situation and flight safety today is the number one problem of the IAF. Serviceability of the IAF fleet is a matter of serious concern.

The IAF planners see the threat from two sides. The first one according to the calculation, is from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the second one from the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (Air Force). Air Commodore (Retd) Jasjit Singh, Director, Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses writes that `This window of vulnerability needs to be urgently addressed`. The IAF, according to estimates provided in the Vayu Aerospace Review, plans to have a fleet of 450 modern state of the art aircraft by the year 2005 instead of 600 at present on its inventory. As per information available in Janes World Air Forces, the IAF has a number of varied weapon systems acquired at different intervals during the last 50 years. Starting with Gnats and Hunters, it turned to the Soviet Union in mid 60`s when MiG-21 were inducted. This was a modern interceptor aircraft which also has the distinction of the largest produced aircraft in the world by the Soviet Union. This weapon system remains the main stay of the IAF. This was followed by Jaguar, an Anglo-French deep penetration strike aircraft acquired in 1979. The next in the line were again the Soviet built MiG-23 and MiG-27 strike aircraft inducted in 1980. The Indians were not ready to take chances by depending only on one source. Then there was a question of technology also. Two more weapon systems i.e. Mirage 2000, the French manufactured air defence fighter and MiG-29, an extremely agile Soviet made interceptor were acquired in 1984 and 1986 respectively. The latest addition is the Sukhoi (Su-30) Russian made multi-role fighter. A total of 40 aircraft are planned to be inducted in the next two to three years time frame. Out of the number, eight have already reached India. Much against the wishes of a number of Indian strategic planners, more than two thirds of the fighter, transport and helicopters fleet of the IAF is of Soviet/Russian origin. This has a historical background which need not be mentioned in details. Basically it was a decision which suited the Indians most during the cold war era. These were made easily available without much preconditions, unlike the western sources, against long-term soft payment in rupees and aid along with the transfer of technology including the assembly and progressive manufacturing in the Hindustan Aeronautic Limited (HAL).

The main crunch for the IAF came in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This badly affected the supplies of spares required to keep the fleet going. It also hurt the production line at the HAL factories. It was after this debacle that flight safety in the IAF suffered serious setback. The mishap averaged 25 a year. This sent an uproar in the relevant quarters; IAF blaming HAL and HAL blaming the interruptions in the procurement of spares and technology from the Russian Federation. For the IAF leadership the question was what first. The Flight Safety or the Combat Readiness. The operational readiness demanded a minimum of 180 hours of flying training to its pilots. These were the general British and American standards. But could it be done? Were these standards achievable under the circumstance? The answer was a big `No`. Not more than a 100 hours flying training could be provided to an operational pilot. The situation had become so bad that Air Chief Marshal Sarren in 1995 issued the controversial order to give preference to flight safety on operational readiness. This did bring down the rate of accidents and crashes but certainly at the cost of the combat readiness of the IAF. The situation has not shown any significant improvement. The question whether the IAF would be able to sustain a 37 squadrons fleet authorized in 70`s is open to question. Air Chief Marshal S K Kaul a formal Chief of the IAF (1993-1995) has been very critical of the `make shift arrangements` for the IAF procurement programme. There have also been reports in the Indian press that the 40 Mirage-2000, were acquired in 1982 without any requirement by the IAF. The IAF was not a party to this decision. The original number was one hundred. But then the plans, later on, were shelved. The same, more or less, has been the case with MiG-29.

Air Chief Marshal A Y Tippins has to live with these problems. He has recently taken over as the new Air Chief. He can only hope and pray that the MiG and Sukhoi upgrade manufacture programme works and that the Russians play a more active and positive role in ensuring uninterrupted supplies of spares and technology. There is again a big question mark if this can be done given the political and economic condition with which the Russian Federation at present is faced with.

The IAF has also been facing another serious problem. This is the problem of the non-availability of an Advance Jet Trainer (AJT). One of the main reasons of a very large number of fatal crashes in the IAF has been the absence of and AJT. The IAF has been crying for this aircraft for the last 14 years. Nothing materialized since the demand was put to the Indian Government in 1982. The problem, however, does indicate that serious efforts are on for acquiring an AJT. There are three competitors at present. The British Hawk is one, followed by MiG - AT. The Czechs have also been jumping with their LI 59. However given the complexity of international arms market and procurement procedure including vested interests, nothing can be predicted in this regard with any amount of certainty. Although Mr George Fernandes, the Indian Defence Minister said at the Bangalore Air Show in 1998, that his ministry has `almost finalized the choice which will be made known in the very near future`, those who are concerned are skeptical as to what will be this `near future`, given 66 AJT priced at $ 12 to 16 million (Rs. 50 to 60 crore) each. The stakes are too high to reach an early decision. The deal involves an amount of $ 1.5 billion. Any decision by the Indian Government of side tracking MiG-AT will have serious repercussions for the IAF as a whole. This is not an easy decision for the Indian government. The Americans own 40 percent share in the Czech trainers. The Indians also have a twenty years old association with the British when Jaguars were purchased. Going for one, will certainly be at the annoyance of the other two parties. Let us see how things unfold.

The situation with which the IAF is faced with does provide a breathing space to the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). The PAF, inspite of an ageing fleet, is in an enviable position as far as its flight safety and combat readiness record till todate is concerned. However, the situation may not last long unless measures are taken on priority basis to replace the very ageing component of the fleet and induct a certain number of high tech fighter aircraft. This has been a long and outstanding issue with the PAF. There will be a point where the law of diminishing return will start applying. Let that point never come. Flight Safety and Combat Readiness cannot be separated. The two issues cannot be deliberated in isolation of each other. Whatever Air Chief Marshal Sareen thought about flight safety and combat readiness may not be the feelings and views of others.

I think this book will put the smack down on indian `superiority complex` while shutting up people like Alephnull...

The Indian Air Force : trends and prospects / George K. Tanhma & Marcy Agmon.

Publication info: Santa Monica, CA : Rand, 1995.

From Indian Statistician JaganPVS`s Website:

http://members.tripod.com/

Rsaxena

If 1965 was a victory for the Indians, I shudder to think what defeat must look like...

Now.. see I feel bad for the plane crashes in China and Tunisia as I did for the WTC crashes..

But jallunder.. and IAF.. no way!

Veeresh

``Just wondering, are you deriving some ghoulish joy out of the death of people after an airplane crashes into their home and/or office?``

Yes indeed, I love it. Now bend over.